the wild parrots of Bonaire part 1

The single most thing that made the trip to Bonaire worthwhile was seeing large flocks of brown throated parakeets and yellow fronted amazon parrots fly by.

For the last four years, I would see on occasion, small flocks of the parakeets but not the amazons. Four years ago, I was lucky enough to spot a small group of the amazons that would roost in the hibiscus bushes behind "happy Holiday Homes" in Punt Verkant. Sadly, a lot of construction had been taking place building more and more "new vacation homes" tearing down the bushes, trees and plant life.

The parrots had disappeared.

What plants remained the wild donkeys and roaming goats ate.

On this visit to Bonaire, at about 6:00am, the sky came alive with the raucous call of these amazon parrots. I saw them in the hibiscus bushes, on the telephone wires and trees that looked like they had hanging peapods. I thought to myself, "wow, I wonder if these are the parrots that were rehabbed and released from the parrot smuggling episode?".

It was very exciting to see.

The first thing I did despite feeling pretty shitty from the flight (migraine)was to seek out the director of the parrot rescue of echobonaire. The last I heard via the internet, that they were rehabbing the parrots at a youth center downtown called Jong Bonaire. I thought this was a brillant idea to get teens involved in caring, learning and being responsible for the well being of these 150 or so baby parrots.

I drove around looking for the place and found it accidentally . It started to rain. My windshield wipers were not working so I pulled into the first parking arena on a side road.It was Jong Bonaire.

It turned out that most of the parrots were released and were no longer being cared for at Jong Bonaire.

My heart sank. I was hoping to find out more about the birds. I talked to the activities director at the center and she informed me that the rest of the parrots that were still in need of rehabbing, medical care and feedings were moved to aviaries outside of town. She was kind enough place a call the director of echobonaire for me.

I talked to Sam Williams who was in charge of the program. The next day he arranged to pick me up to take to the aviaries. I was grateful because I was afraid to drive my rental truck since the wipers didn't work and I had a flat tire.

I was about to embark on a new adventure.

* And yes, those photos above I took!