16th March

Sunday we took a taxi into Trinidad to meet up with José, then another one for the 12 km trip out to the beautiful river Ibare, surrounded on both banks with forest.  There we had a motor boat hired with pilot and his 2 young sons to help bail out the bilge water just for our group.

It was a lovely tranquil cruise, watching the many cormorants who nearly always took flight just before we reached them, perching in the next group of trees to repeat the sequence as we approached them again.  Keeping our eyes peeled for the dolphins was not so easy as the water is a muddy brown - the dolphins can't use vision to find their way in the turbid water, they use a type of sonar.  There were not many other species of birds visible in the mid morning, and no monkeys either.  By the time we had spent an hour and had to turn round we hadn't had any sightings of the dolphins and were beginning to think they were in another part of the river. But suddenly I spotted one break the surface, and after that we kept sighting them, each one for just a second as they don't leap out, just surface enough to breathe.  We could see their pink colouration and their strange narrow angular beak, I even caught one on film as evidence!  So an inspiring trip, followed by lunch at another of the 4 restaurants managed by the owner of the land where where our Centre is situated.  Caiman casserole with rice and plantain, washed down with 2 huge jugs of natural fruit juice (cant remember the name of the fruit, with added sugar, but very refreshing!), very nice and too much to finish all of it.

As we waited by the church for the taxi back it was interesting to see a cow in the side aisle eying us with suspicion, eventually she leapt over the wall to return to her grazing outside!  There were lots of colourful butterflies and quite a few macaws and parakeets flying overhead, all of which José could identify by sound alone, he has amazing knowledge about parrots, a real addict.

The week settled to a rhythm of training with Rebecca, and waiting for the planned field trip to materialise, with problems hiring horses, sudden work commitments cropping up for José and torrential rain (glad we didn't go that day!). On Wednesday we usually do our weekly shop as the fresh fruit and veg come in by boat that day.  However this time they were on strike, and as Rafa was too busy to go till the afternoon, by then there was nothing left.  So we have had a week of surviving on tins, bread meat, rice and lentils and my cake.
 Eventually José Nic and I set off on Sunday morning in the car with the intention that we would do a day's work with the wild blue throated macaws together, then leave Nic to take a taxi back whilst José and I took the two horses available to ride for 2.5h on to the next property and camp there for the night.  We would then check the nests in that area before returning on the horses and drive back in the afternoon.  As it turned out to be one of the hottest and most humid days so far, the long walk was quote a challenge for us all, and by the time we reached the nest area we were glad of the break in a lovely shady woodland glade for our picnic lunch of bread rolls with tuna and tomato, plus an apple.  Even the mosquitoes didn't bother us too much!

Then we spotted our first pair of wild blue throated macaws, a magic moment, having seen the captive ones  in our aviaries, it was wonderful to see what our work is striving to achieve - to keep them free in their natural habitat!  We checked various nests, most of which are man made boxes at this site: one had 3 eggs, the next 2 chicks which were fully feathered and almost ready to fledge.  Those we needed to weigh and take blood samples from (with the necessary permit of course) so José climbed up the palm tree using ropes, very tiring, then he had to avoid very strong beaks and claws in manipulating the chicks.
All completed, but we needed permission to ring the chicks and take the moulted adult feathers (very important genetic information for our study) that were in the nest boxes.  After checking the final nest box to find 3 chicks, José decided it would be better to return later in the week to get all the information we needed from this site, and postpone the horse ride to the next property.  So we all returned to the car and drive to nearby San Lorenzo to cancel the horses and speak to a local guy about the problems facing the macaws (political and social as well as habitat loss)

We bought coca cola for us all, as there were no tamarind ice creams to be had!  We certainly needed to rehydrate! He then gave us fresh cheesy bread rolls still warm from the oven, yum!  And his son hitched a lift with us to Trinidad, dropping Nic and I back at the Centre in Sachojere en route.  A cool shower and clean clothes enabled us to enjoy some local beef with the few veg we had remaining, and a glass of wine to end a very special experience.