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part 4 of the great bolivian parrot tour: blue-throated macaw! we got your blue-throated macaws breeding right here!

2011-04-28 - 8:15 a.m.


all photos � 2011 by elaine radford
baby blue-throated macaws, talk about cute!

Thursday, April 14, Trinidad to Loreto, Beni, Bolivia

You have reached Part 4 of the incredible Bolivian parrot tour. To start at the beginning, you may want to follow these links:

However, if you are just interested in the Blue-Throated Macaw watching, you've come to the right page.

Finally, we were actually able to get a bright and early start in the morning. The guide was itching and twitching to search for Blue-Throated Macaws. I have a pretty good idea that the original plan was to go to the Blue-Throated Macaw area the very first day, and maybe every day, if necessary to get this critically endangered Macaw. Hey, we could grab everything else along the way or after the main objective had been secured. However, the blockaders meant that we had only one day -- the last full day in Beni department -- to hunt for Blue-Throated Macaws. We'd have to make the most of it.

Check out the van that picked us up. Maybe you can see the phrase "Paraba Barba Azul" painted on the van? I didn't know the word "paraba." I had always heard the word for macaw as "guacamaya," which seems to be the widely used term in Puerto Rico and Central America. Maybe Mexico too? However, "Paraba" is the Bolivian word for macaw, so "Paraba Barba Azul" means Blue-Throated Macaw. And now you know almost as much Spanish as Peachfront does.

We could speak of the beautiful light through the pink clouds of sunrise. We could speak of our first Yellow-Headed Caracara, which posed patiently for a snapshot. We could speak of the Peach-Fronted Conure/Parakeet pair, who observed us quietly and somewhat concernedly as we examined their old breeding nest, a termite mound. The local guide showed me the difference between the two termite nests in the area. S. translated it as something along the lines of, They could use a lot of different termite nests, but they choose these. I was pleased to note that the roostboxes we'd built were roughly the same size, but slightly larger. We can't -- won't -- provide termite nests, but we can create pleasing alternatives. In the interests of science, I will record that picky Peach-Fronts eschew blackish termite nests and choose light grey termite nests. Yeppers, this is a real scientific diary, isn't it?

For what it's worth, the Peachfronts chose an area of more open, somewhat dappled light, but the Blue-Throated Macaws were using a nestbox that was in quite a dark place under the canopy. I seem to have a pretty good light balance for my Peachfronts out on the bird porch.


a termite mound on a tree trunk that the Peachfront Conure (Parakeet) pair had used for nesting, the detail shows how cleverly hidden is the entrance hole...now wait a darn minute, you're thinking, she's gonna make us scrowl past a stupid Peachfront's termite nest before we get to the good juicy Blue-Throated Macaw stuff?...well, folks, it IS called Peachfront Speaks, if you don't like my priorities, go see for yourself and write your own report

The main Blue-Throated Macaw reserve is quite a distance away from any cities. This nest site was actually on private property, a working ranch with cows and actual cowboys on horseback. It doesn't hold the main population of the remaining Blue-Throats, just a remnant, two adult pairs if I understood aright. There's more habitat, but people have to be educated not to hunt or collect them, I'm told. Well, education is a problem that can be fixed -- how many effwits still hunt Whooping Cranes in America? Sure, there's a few, but not many. So I found the fact that the birds co-exist in a relaxed, friendly manner with cowboys and other humans to be pretty encouraging. As long as there are humans, there will be hamburger, and as long as there are hamburgers, there will be cows, so if macaws can thrive on a cattle ranch, their habitat is pretty secure.

some cowboys working the blue-throated macaw ranch

This property owner wants you to go with his guide, as opposed to wandering randomly onto his property, so at Loreto we picked up this guy, and now I had TWO guides for just me. A bit extravagant, �verdad? On the other hand, it's jobs in a world where there are 7 billion people and not so many jobs, so why not? This is flooded wetland country, and the macaws breed in the rainy season, so the guide supplied us with some the rubber boots before he led us to the nestbox that he thought still held babies -- the birds had fledged from the other box, a story you will hear later.

At the supposed working nest, it was pretty much quiet as a mouse on Christmas Eve. We poked around the area, waiting two or three hours in hopes that the adults would fly in, and meanwhile trying to pick up other birds.

I also observed a new reptile, the entertaining Amazon Whiptail Lizard. The bold male had not one but two females. The picky Peach-Fronts, going two by two, are scandalized at the very idea.

But I digress. The point is, we can talk Peachfronts and termites and exotic flashy lizards and obscure seldom-seen seedeaters and pretty much anything else you care to mention, but poor S. continued to get itchier and twitchier, because there's one real target. We're not here to pick up peanuts, we're here for Blue-Throated Macaw. But the day was getting hotter and sweatier, and it was apparent that no self-respecting bird was going to be flying around for awhile. The local guide finally cut a long palm frond off a friendly tree and went to tap the nestbox. We hadn't heard a sound, and all of us were beginning to doubt that the birds were still there.

One tiny tap, and thereupon arose in the formerly peaceful forest such a ferocious squawk-a-commotion that I was almost blasted backwards onto my ass. These guys are loud. Seriously, ear-splittingly LOUD.

The babies were there, and we're not talking faint, fading flowers. We're talking opera singers from before the invention of microphones, each with lungs that could only be described as seriously healthy. Well, if there are healthy babies in the nest, the adults will be back, assuming they're still alive and breathing on this planet. I was no longer worried. I just "knew" it would be OK.

admit it, there's cute and there's too cute, and this baby blue-throated macaw is just oozing cute-itude

But, for now, it was time for lunch. We returned to the town. There was no menu. A lady just kept bringing us food. Good food, tasty food but for the love of all the green fishes, TOO MUCH FOOD! Also, there was a sad story. The other nest box was done for the year, with two fledglings, but some effwit had killed one of them. The local guide may have thought I was an ornithologist or some other sort of scientist on a busman's holiday, rather than a mere tourist, because he clapped his hands for the lady to bring the killed baby out of the freezer. I do not need to see a stabbed, frozen Blue-Throated Macaw youngster. It was just too sad. But they don't know why the individual killed the bird. It sounded like (my Spanish is really bad, so I'm not sure) that they don't even know who did it. Someone turned in the fact of the killing but maybe not the killer? But the other baby is fine, and I know that this species will triumph in the end...but I'm getting ahead of myself.

We were still eating when the driver's phone rang. Yes, cell phones ring even in the most distant part of the outback in Bolivia. I'm not even amazed and amused any more. I just take it for granted that cell phone technology in any country of the world (unless it's a fourth world semi-Stone Age part of Madagascar) is more advanced than the United States.

So...A cute ringtone, it was the squawk of the Blue-Throated Macaw. However, S. and I had barely chuckled our chuckles over the ringtone before we heard the driver say something like, "Que ahora? which I translated to mean, "What now?"

S. could understand more than that. There was much discussion, and then he informed me that the blockades were back, and now we were on the wrong side of it, since our luggage and the airport was on the other side of the blockade, within Trinidad. Oh brother.

"Well, when we get within walking distance, can't we just walk over?"

S. eyed me oddly. "We'll have R. [the guy who had been driving us around during the blockade] bring our bags out."

Say what? I already knew that R. wouldn't even cross an unmanned rope blockade. I just couldn't see him crossing a blockade of actual human beings to deliver some bags. And say he did, which he would probably try to do just to be nice...what then? Now he's ALSO stuck on the wrong side. Holy cow. It just didn't make any sense, so I decided not to worry about it. This kind of stuff must happen all the time, and they must have a workaround, and I'm just not going to try to figure out what it is, because that's above my pay grade.

So we finished eating lunch, and the local guide put me in a hammock. Yah, it's the first time I've actually been ENCOURAGED to put my feet up and pass out in the middle of a restaurant. I thought I couldn't sleep in a hammock but suddenly I jerked and realized that an hour had passed so, erm, I could probably get used to this.

Finally, it was deemed a reasonable hour to venture back into the field. As we strolled into the area, we suddenly heard the raucous cry of -- you guessed it! -- Blue-Throated Macaws. They flew in and perched in the open, on top of a tree, where we could see them sitting and gossiping together. I'm told that once the babies are big, the adults give two or three big feeds in a day, and our best guess is that when we came in the morning, the adults had just left after giving a huge feed that put the babies right to sleep. When we returned, they were just departing. They circled, squawked, landed, and discussed. Great views with eyes, binoculars, and scope. Finally, the talkative parents may have recognized the guy who came everyday to weigh the growing babies for science, or they may have known the score all along, because they decided it was OK to head on off. Then we went to the nestbox for the daily weigh-in.

I was informed that, before our fearless researchers removed the babies for the weigh-in, I was welcome to climb the ladder and take a photo of the babies in the nest. I couldn't refuse the offer, but every time I raised the camera, the babies raised such a squawk that it actually hurt my ears and I couldn't get a good shot. Rather than keep aggravating them, I descended the ladder and let one of the guides climb up to grab the best shots. Then they moved onto putting babies in a bucket and taking them down to weigh -- and, also, today was the day to collect feathers for the DNA test. Ouchie!

The first, and rowdiest, most rambunctious of the three babies, was #21. (They have numbers, not names, for tracking purposes.) If you think that a little thing like not being old enough to be out of the nest -- he was out of the nest only because the researcher took him out a few minutes to examine him -- well, if you think a little thing like the FACTS was going to stop #21 from giving you what-for and letting you know that he was the little big man of the forest, that's only because you haven't met #21. This bird has true spirit. The DNA feather was just collected that day, so perhaps it isn't correct to say he has machismo, because maybe he is a she. But you know what I mean when I say, this bird is macho.

lucky number 21

Having tagged the toughest Macaw of the tour, we headed back, stopping here and there to get some other good birds along the way. At some point, we picked up the Dark-Throated Seed-eater, a nice male and female pair, and close too -- another life bird not just for me but for S. I have him completely believing that:

I am the Seed-Eater King
I can do Anything

For me, the best non-macaw life bird of the day HAD to be the Slender-Billed Kite, which was perched right along the road back to Trinidad. You could have knocked me off my perch, because I didn't really expect to get any new raptors on this tour. It's hard to get good raptors on a non-raptor tour, say-eth the raptor tour snob...

My first view of Epaulet Oriole was also my best sighting of Epaulet Oriole, since the bird was dining on a couple of large, day-glo green caterpillars.

Back from Loreto, as i washed up for dinner, who flew up to bid me good-bye on my last night in Trinidad but some highly atmospheric white-eyed parakeets?

The List:

Today's featured lifers will be in bold.

  1. Greater Rhea
  2. Speckled Chachalaca
  3. Southern Screamer
  4. Black-Bellied Whistling-Duck
  5. Neotropic Cormorant
  6. Rufescent Tiger-Heron
  7. Black-Crowned Night-Heron
  8. Striated Heron
  9. Cattle Egret
  10. Cocoi Heron
  11. Great Egret
  12. Whistling Heron
  13. Snowy Egret
  14. Bare-Faced Ibis
  15. Plumbeous Ibis
  16. Buff-Necked Ibis
  17. Maguari Stork
  18. Jabiru
  19. Wood Stork
  20. Limpkin
  21. Turkey Vulture
  22. Black VUlture
  23. Snail Kite
  24. Slender-Billed Kite
  25. Savanna Hawk
  26. Black-Collared Hawk
  27. Roadside Hawk
  28. Southern Caracara
  29. Yellow-Headed Caracara
  30. American Kestrel
  31. Grey-Necked Wood-Rail
  32. Purple Gallinule
  33. Wattled Jacana
  34. Southern Lapwing
  35. Picazuro Pigeon
  36. ROck DOve
  37. Ruddy Ground-Dove
  38. Picui Ground-Dove
  39. Gray-Fronted Dove
  40. Blue-and-Yellow Macaw
  41. Blue-Throated Macaw
  42. Chestnut-Fronted Macaw
  43. White-Eyed Parakeet
  44. Dusky-Headed Parakeet
  45. Peach-Fronted Parakeet
  46. Blue-WInged Parrotlet
  47. Yellow-Chevroned Parakeet
  48. Cobalt-Winged Parakeet
  49. Smooth-Billed Ani
  50. Guira Cuckoo
  51. Ringed Kingfisher
  52. Toco Toucan
  53. Campo Flicker
  54. Lineated Woodpecker
  55. Narrow-Billed Woodcreeper
  56. Rufous Hornero
  57. Rufous Cacholote
  58. White-Rumped Monjita
  59. White Monjita
  60. Great Kiskadee
  61. Tropical Kingbird
  62. Sayaca Tanager
  63. Dark-Throated Seed-Eater
  64. Red-Crested Finch
  65. Red-Crested Cardinal
  66. Crested Oropendula
  67. Troupial
  68. Epaulet Oriole
  69. Velvet-Fronted Grackle
  70. Chopi Blackbird
  71. Unicolored Blackbird
  72. Bay-Winged Cowbird
  73. Giant Cowbird
  74. White-Browed Blackbird
  75. House Sparrow

You have just read part 4 of the amazing Bolivian parrot tour, the episode where I meet an entire family of critically endangered Blue-Throated Macaws. Continue to part 5. Coming soon: the endangered Hyacinth Macaw.

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