A Gift for Don Alvaro

When we arrived, Don Alvaro had just hosted a school group that morning. The macaws were already full of peanuts! He hosts as many as four groups per week now. He said there had been a sudden jump in requests for visits, and he's not sure why. (Could it be the magic that pervades his farm?)

I became worried that my blogposts might have been part of the reason for the uptick in attention. I'm not sure it is, but this is exposure of a kind he hasn't had before. I asked him if it was becoming too much for him. He said it wasn't a problem (yet).  But his first thought is what is best for the macaws. The modest fees he takes for hosting school and other groups go to making nest boxes, and a bigger jaguar enclosure, coming soon. He's making a road now, and a pond in a low pasture for wild birds. Beyond that flows the river where the sunbittern sings. All this, and a sunbittern hopping from rock to rock just below the finca...the magic never stops.

So thanks to your generous response to my appeal, we had a very nice gift ($1,000) for Don Alvaro, and I'd written him a letter, which Mario read and translated as he went. We all gathered in the yard while the macaws dangled and played and the great curassow hen chased Jimmy our bus driver all over the place behind us while the "ceremony" was going on. I couldn't see that happening, but my group was all stifling laughter even as they tried to be respectful and solemn. The joy kept bursting out.

 These photos by Bonnie Bowen

 Jimmy wasn't wild about having a turkey-sized bird pecking at his calves. Who would be?

 Go chase somebody else, you durn bird!

But it's YOU I want. I like your shoes.

Mario translates my letter to Don Alvaro. Goofy scarlet macaw twirls and shows off.

Dear Don Alvaro:

  It is a great pleasure to see you again this year. Our group’s visit to your  beautiful sanctuary was the highlight of my trip last year. When I got home, I posted photos and a story on my blog about your work with macaws. It captured the imagination of my readers, and several of them asked if they might make a gift to you, so that you may continue to rescue macaws and return them to the sky. 

  So in January I posted some more photos of you with your macaws. And I offered to bring you a gift when I returned in February 2015. I was overwhelmed by the response from readers. You have touched their hearts.

  For 23 years, I had a macaw, named Charlie. She was a chestnut-fronted macaw, Ara severa. Although she was captive-bred and we loved each other, she was always wild at heart. I spent as much time with her as I could, but it wasn’t enough. She plucked her feathers, more every year. As the years went by I realized how wrong it is to cage a macaw. We built a special glass room for her, so she wouldn’t have to live in a cage. But that wasn’t enough, either. In my travels, whenever I would see wild parrots and macaws, it made me cry to see how happy they were in a flock, flying free. When Charlie died in 2010, I knew I would never again be able to own a parrot.

This is the only way to keep macaws: free. To take them from solitary confinement and return them to the society of other macaws, to set them free, is to give a gift to them and to the world. It is a lot of work to keep one macaw happy. I can’t imagine having 19 (and now 30!) to satisfy. Thank you for all you do to help these birds. Please accept this gift as a token of our respect and gratitude.

And the letter is signed with the names of everyone who so generously donated to Don Alvaro, that he may continue to show people how these magnificent birds were meant to live: free, in pairs and flocks, tussling and fighting and laughing and mating and --most of all-- flying.

On the evening after these photos were taken, Don Alvaro came to Selva Verde, where we were staying, to thank me personally for your gift. Because he is a self-effacing and humble man, he did not look in the envelope I handed him. When he finally did, he got in his truck and drove over. He said nobody had ever done anything like that for him. He was very grateful. He talked for a long time, in incredibly rapid-fire Spanish, and Mario interpreted for me. I scribbled down what he was saying as fast as I could, but I know I missed a lot.

Back to our visit that day...Don Alvaro had  a surprise for me, too. When we pulled up, the water buffalo I'd admired so last year was tied up to a tree, wearing a saddle. 

I became a little suspicious...

Here, he said. You ride him!

Aaaack! OK! Here we go! I'll do anything once.

 My soas muscles will never be the same.

As you could see in the video above, Don Alvaro has more than a little showman in him. When he vaulted up behind me I about died  and fell off the buffalo from laughing. I still hoot every time I see these photos. Oh Lord. I can't unsee that.

But this...this I want to see in my mind's eye forever.

A special thank you to reader and great soul Jeff Ferguson, who planted the idea for this litte fundraiser in my head after my Don Alvaro posts in 2014. With a book deadline that started in April and stretched through mid-July, it's taken me far too long to catch up and gather all the photos and information I needed to write these posts, and I thank you all for your patience and your generosity. 

Don Alvaro was truly moved, and so were we all. And yes, he smiled!

Macaw Rescue: Don Alvaro's Story

 We were here on a mission of sorts. Before I left for Costa Rica in the third week of February, 2015, I put out an appeal to you, my dear and faithful readers, for donations to help Don Alvaro and his work with macaws (and people). Having kept just one small macaw for 23 years, in the manner to which she'd become accustomed, I know how expensive it is.

A lucky pair: yellow-naped and red-lored Amazons enjoying a peanut snack.

A pair of scarlet macaws fooling around. WRRRAAAAWWWK!! AAAWWWK!!

 I have been intensely curious about how Don Alvaro came to have all these macaws, and I finally had a chance to speak with him at length, with Mario as interpreter. What I'm about to tell you is from that conversation.

It all started 25 years ago with four macaws his father had owned, and four more given to him from confiscations by the Ministry of Environment.

Lucky macaws, to land here, where they would be allowed to fly free through appropriate habitat and even breed! Forty macaws have fledged from his nest boxes in that period, of which 30 now fly free around his farm. He has eight nest boxes, barrels that he mounts high in the trees and fills with balsa wood for them to "excavate." Macaws like to nest high in mountain almond trees with broken branch stubs that make enormous cavities. Those huge trees stand alone, like sentinels, and there are not nearly enough of them to serve as nest trees now.

Don Alvaro "keeps" two species at his finca, the scarlet and the great green macaw.

Both are native to Costa Rica, but severely endangered by loss of habitat. Most of his birds are paired with species-appropriate mates, and they're duly producing purebred offspring.

He has one pair consisting of a scarlet male and great green female. And there's a story in that. The scarlet was mated for years to a very fertile scarlet hen, who produced a number of broods, but sadly, she died when she hit a powerline. Her widowed mate now sneaks matings with a fertile female great green, who has been paired for years with an infertile male great green. This hen laid infertile eggs for years until she started consorting in secret with the widowed male scarlet. (She still goes everywhere with her infertile great green mate, but come nesting time she kicks him out, mates with the scarlet widower, and finally gets to raise babies.) This great green hen now produces hybrid young, and there's not much Don Alvaro can do about it, because love amongst free-flying macaws is a complicated thing.

Three hybrid babies with their great green mama (second from right) and their scarlet daddy (far right). They're so pretty, but we hope and trust they're sterile!

A hybrid scarlet x great green macaw in flight:

Don Alvaro is pretty sure the hybrids are sterile, and won't compromise the gene pool of the purebred birds.

A great green macaw, with scarlets behind.

When people come to see the macaws, he calls them in with peanuts. Lapa lapa lapa lapa lapa! he calls.

He knows how to set up a photo op, watching the light and telling us where to stand for the best angle. In this video, you can get a feel for the energy and presence of this remarkable man. He is so utterly in tune with animals and birds, and the evidence of that harmony is all around.

Next, we present the gift.

Macaw Magic

When the macaw and monkey show subsided, most of our group wandered on down the lane on Don Alvaro's finca to see what we could see. I had heard macaws screaming over the river just downhill, and I wanted to see them fly.

On our way we came upon a most remarkable fruiting shrub, which was full of the most remarkable birds, like this golden-hooded tanager.

An olive-backed euphonia glowed in the leaves.

Green honeycreepers never fail to draw gasps for their intense sea-green plumage, their velvet black masks. The red eye and yellow bill, just cherries on top.

It was a tree full of wonder. In this photo: two golden-hooded tanagers, a green honeycreeper and two red-legged honeycreepers. Can you find the second one?

There commenced a display interaction between two male red-legged honeycreepers, in which they rapidly stretched skyward, then bowed, showing each other their turquoise beanies. I was put in the unprecedented position of being a touch mad at a gorgeous green honeycreeper for placidly bombing the shot. Derrr!

This happens to me all the time in Ohio. Durn green honeycreepers, always wantin' in. 

A male white-collared manakin played coy. Sigh. My best shot. It can be very difficult to get a decent photo in dense vegetation. I wanted more of this velvety wonder, but never got it.

A purple-crowned fairy (hummingbird) slept on a distant bough. I crept toward it and photographed it without frightening it, then crept back. Such an elegant bird. I'd have loved to get closer but it wouldn't have been worth rousing the bird.

I wandered away from the group to see what was going on with two small birds who were furiously fighting. They were moving so fast I couldn't even tell what they were. I just shot as they looped and twirled over my head.

As I was to do so many times on the trip, I enlarged the image and quickly looked at the screen. No time for a binocular look--they wouldn't sit still. So I let the camera freeze them. Chestnut-sided warblers! My old pals from Connecticut! Now in drab winter plumage.

Memories flooded my mind. In June of 1986, I attended an International Ornithological Congress in Ottawa. I was just a baby bird painter. But I exhibited my plates for a proposed revision of Birds of Insular Newfoundland. I realized then, but even more keenly realize now, how lucky I was to be there, and I thank ornithologist Bill Montevecchi of the Memorial University of Newfoundland for helping me get there. I attended a lecture by the brilliant and sadly missed Russell Greenberg, who was to become a friend, mentor, illustration client and overall hero over the ensuing years. That might not have happened had we not met at the Congress. In the lecture, he stated that chestnut-sided warblers are mentally quite inflexible. Neophobic, he called it. They have one foraging strategy--underleaf gleaning--and stick to it. When they take fruit on the wintering grounds, they are very territorial, and will defend a favorite fruiting tree from conspecifics. If you're inflexible in your foraging, if you only take a few types of fruit, you're probably pretty cranky about anyone horning in on your stash of food. Not a flocker, to say the least. I was seeing this behavior right over my head.

And got one of my favorite photos of the trip by accident. A perfect map of a chestnut-sided warbler. The spread tail pattern blows me away. A pose that would do Audubon proud. My mentor's bird (one of so many). And all this against a bright white sky. All hail the nimble Canon 7D and 

70-300 IS L telephoto lens.

But it was only to get better. For the macaws were adjourning, out of the reach of annoying monkeys, in a treetop along the river.

A great green and a scarlet come in for a landing. HRAWWWWKKK!!!

Trailing clouds of glory they come...

  while I pirouette on the earth below, trying so hard to catch the fire in their wings

but it is all much too fast, too free

I still choke up looking at these last two photos. No words can capture how these birds affect me when they're flying

free against a towering sky.

I've said enough about that. Just look at them. No Balinesian artist could dream up better gods.

 Don Alvaro's farm is a magical place filled with cattle, yes, but its heart is populated with economically useless, high investment animals, all dearly loved and tenderly cared for.

Even the dogs were adorable. When we got out of the bus a huge pitbull mix flopped at our feet and thumped her tail. I was on it like Bluebonnet.

These little characters were playing with a bit of rubber, accepting my dog-starved lovin's. Oh I needed some animal contact!

I tried to tell Don Alvaro how much this afternoon had meant to me, and failed. Just clasped my hands in front of my chest and bowed, wordless. Gracias, Senor. Muchas gracias. I'd have to write it here and hope someone showed it to him someday.

As we rolled out the road, a water buffalo turned and walked toward us. He was imposing, to be sure, a great India rubber beast packed with muscle. 

Oh how I wanted to run to him, to scratch his ears and touch noses with him. Scary nose ring and all, I was sure he'd be as lovely as the female pitbull, the sensual curassow, the serene donkey, the jealous paca.  He tossed his head, showing off his curly horns. I wanted me some of that tightly packed buffalo magic.

Mario told me to stay on the bus. 

Next time, W.B. I'll sneak off and see you. We'll talk. I'll pick your ticks. It's a date.

Angry Monkeys

I was talking to the animals, Doolittle style, and making a big big fuss over the female great curassow at Don Alvaro's wonderful animal sanctuary. And the little paca was sooo hurt and jealous. If ever there were an accusatory paca, this is it. I am pretty sure that had I been able to get into the enormous flight cage where it lived, it would have climbed onto my lap, demanded a belly rub, and given me what-for. 

Note the hands. I was smitten with this snooty little guinea pig on stilts.

Speaking of that flight cage: It's more like a hacking cage. About 10' off the ground there are several enormous holes cut in the chain link, and the macaws go in and out of them. It's like a big halfway house for them. If they want to feel safe, they go into it and shelter from rain under its partially covered roof. If they want to fly up and down the river or tussle in the treetops, they make their way out. What an elegant system, a system based on trust.

I was delighted to find great green and scarlet macaws enjoying the fruits of a palm right in Don Alvaro's garden. 

I always much prefer taking photos of birds in natural habitat, and these could possibly be useful for publication somewhere.

Extravagant, that's what they are. Flaunting their colors.

I loved watching them fly from tree to tree.

Soon, however, trouble arrived in the form of several wild white-faced capuchins. 

Monkeys suffer for our perceptions, having our anthropomorphism so freely applied to them. But I gotta say: the look on this monkey's face says it all. She was a real piece of work. She wanted the peanuts that Don Alvaro was offering to the macaws, and she resented their having any of them.

So she'd rush the big birds and race to the peanut bowl and grab double handfuls of the nuts and then gobble them down. Which was OK. But then, when the peanuts were all gone, she spent the afternoon racing through the treetops deliberately flushing the macaws for no apparent reason.  Showing off?

Planning an attack on a scarlet macaw which was minding its own business. She reminded me of a tiny catcher behind the plate. 

I had to smile when Mario said, "I don't like those capuchins. They are just nasty animals, always making trouble."

The macaws retreated to the palms to eat.

and continued their storm-trooper like passes through the yard. Cracked squawks and screams rang out continually, but they seemed perfectly in place, not dissonant as they are when echoing off the walls of a room.

Seeing the birds free to do whatever they pleased all day long was such a treat. I wished there were more places like this, where macaws could be free to realize their potential, to pick mates and perhaps raise young.

How I wished there were still tens of thousands of scarlets and great greens in Costa Rica, instead of just hundreds.

We primates are always finding something to be perturbed about. Even in Paradise.