Mother Nature is The Bestest Artist

LW and I are volunteers at my friend Martha Armenta's NGO (Non Governmental organization), CONREHABIT. The organization's mission is the rescue,rehabilitation,release of the Mexican dry forest's endangered birds and mammal's, and educating the human mammals. Back in April of 2008 one afternoon Martha got a call from the federal government. They told her that a truckload of 496 parrot hatch lings had been confiscated at the border, when the poachers attempted to cross with counterfeit papers. The Department of Wildlife Protection wanted CONREHABIT to take 272 of the parrots to rehabilitate and release. These little guys weren't more then a few days to a week old. The one above sitting in LW's hand is one of the older ones with feathers. Some of these guy's didn't even have their chest feathers yet.

  

Our little band of volunteers shifted into high gear to find cages, food, equipment and people to care for these guys. Mind you we have never had this many birds at one time and all these guys had to be hand fed. We have a 1 hectare piece of dry forest at the edge of town where the aviary is, but these guys were way to young to be left out in the cool air. They also needed to be fed every 2-3 hours. Birds and animals that are taken to the "rancho" need to be fairly self sufficient because we don't have 24 care for them. By the time Martha returned (4hours) from picking up the babies we had organized a great group of "foster parents" This is Martha feeding babies, baby parrot gruel with a syringe. By the time we had everyone fed we were covered in gunk and it was time to start feeding the first bunch again.

Now this is the look of a happy baby with a full tummy!! :)

When the babies got big enough to maintain their own body temperatures and feed themselves, not to mention that the older ones were busy trying out their new fangled wings every chance they could, we transferred them out to the aviary. And we began maintenance care until the youths were big enough to release. Because these birds were confiscated by the federal gov. we had to care for them until someone from the department of wildlife protection to come out band the birds and officially sign off on their release. Sooooooo after a couple of elections, and changing of the guards and well you know (red tape) 21 months went by. Yep we still had these parrots well okay there were some that made their own escapes when doors were opened, and we did loose a number of babies from malnutrition/dehydration and birdy colds.

Finally someone stopped long enough to listen to Martha and decided maybe they better come out and check and release the now adult parrots :) Soooo yesterday was the BIG day Yaaaaaaay We made sure everyone had their flight wings on tightly and sporting their identification bands.

Ahhhhh LW our babies are all "growd" up :) The DFWP representatives were there and they brought along the newspaper and TV press. There was a number of Foster Parrot Parents, CONREHABIT members and a group of school kids studying conservation there to watch the kids receive their flight orders. :)

So at the designated time we said goodbye to our little charges and open the cages.

 

But like all kids who first leave the nest they were more comfortable to hang around in the near by trees. Well who can blame them, they knew were the dining table was always set. :)

Here's were my title fits in. Look at these guys are they not perfect? And their colors I don't know of any crayola colors that can even come close. That ol Ma Nature she has more gifts and talents for creating then any human can ever hope to come close to. See how she colored these guys so they match their neighborhoods????

It's going to be a bit quiet around the old aviary these days, but I have a feeling that some of the kids will hang around to continue to call this little protected piece of dry forest home! But my oh my who would have imagined that those little guys would grow up to be such beautiful birds, I ask ya??

And on that note the only thing left to say is:

 Today is a good day to create where ever in the world you are  p;)