Volunteer Blog: Line

We rarely begin and end in the same place. Through our lives we undergo many journeys, big and small, for better and worse. Sometimes we strive for change, fighting tooth and nail for even an ounce of control in a world that can seem indifferent. Other times, change is imposed upon us in an unwelcome, maybe even painful manner, and we are left to pick up the pieces. The story I want to tell you involves both.

It takes place in Costa Rica, where the Caribbean blue waters meet the jungle, at a place called Ara Manzanillo. Ara is a rare place that offers a sanctuary to animals and humans alike, though their mission is to conserve the Great Green Macaws (Ara Ambiguus). For well over a decade, Ara has worked tirelessly to reintroduce the species to its once home in the Southern Caribbean of Costa Rica, after the macaw’s extinction to the area.

I had the great honor and pleasure to volunteer with this project at the start of 2022, and it was by far one of the most unique and rewarding experiences I have had in my life so far. Getting to spend every day in the company of some of the most charismatic and beautiful birds on the planet was a dream come true.

During my time at Ara, I was lucky enough to work closely with two very special birds. It is their story, or at least the beginning of it, I wish to relay here. Their names are Lucy and Diamond. They were named by one of my fellow volunteers in reference to the Beatles song “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds.”

They came to the facility as rescues, after presumably having been held captive by humans for some time. With no jungle survival skills, they need rehabilitation before they could safely join the other birds.  And so, it is fitting, since what the work at Ara wants more than anything is to see Lucy in the sky with Diamond, flying wild and free, just as they were meant to.

The story begins with Lucy, who was the first to arrive at Ara, only a month before me.

From what we’ve heard, she was found near the town of Siquirres, just on the Panama-Costa Rica border, with a rope around her foot, presumably having just escaped capture. A kind soul brought her to the Jaguar Rescue Center, close to Ara Manzanillo. Jaguar was able to quickly see Lucy was rather young, and harbored hopes that she could be rehabilitated and reintroduced to the wild, and so they called upon Ara to see if they would take her in to take her on.

After she had been medically cleared, she was brought to the Ara base and put in the aviary. The Ara team did a crash course in how to rehabilitate captured birds, pulling on a lot of experience they had, from releasing new birds in the area at the beginning of the project.

Since Lucy was quite young, approximately two years (hard to tell exactly with these birds and since we don’t know how long she had been in captivity), there were high hopes that she could be released. However, it also meant that many of the skills she should have learned from her parents, and generally how to live in the wild, were underdeveloped. This included several things like learning to recognize and eat important food types, fly, climb, balance, and more.

Helping Lucy acquire survival skills was the main point of the rehabilitation since they are necessary if she is to be released into the wild, especially in a (for her) completely foreign territory.

To do this, a variety of methods were employed. Feeding her local foods that she should be able to recognize and eat in the wild is important – mountain almonds and beach almonds were especially important as it consist of a good portion of her daily diet. To help her along, we would pre-crack a lot of the almonds in the beginning and leave a few unopened in the hopes she would eventually get the strength to do it herself. During my time there, she did seem to get more proficient, though cracking her food it was certainly a point of struggle.

Now, I wasn’t there for the initial flight training, but I did hear stories. It was carried out through the advanced method of spooking her with a spray bottle. These birds hate to be wet, so the method was never to drench her but to spook her with anticipation and practice escape. This doubled down as to groom her fear of humans, as Ara seeks for these birds to be wild and not accustomed to human interaction.  By the time I got there, she had certainly gotten good at flying from one end of the cage to another. The spray method worked.

Finally, to help her improve her climbing and balance, we installed foliage inside the aviary for her to climb/sit on, as well as land on and take off from. Practicing on wobbly branches helped improve her balance and gave her something to navigate when flying through the aviary. In the beginning, it was mostly just some big branches extending from the sides, though eventually, this spiraled into installing whole trees in the aviary. Don’t get me wrong - it looked amazing, and the birds loved it - but it was certainly quite the effort to extricate and install trees once or twice a week. Worth it though.

One thing to note is that very little of the rehabilitation revolves around directly teaching the birds anything. What we did was provide Lucy with opportunities to learn and improve on her own. Parrots are highly intelligent and this manifests in attributes such as curiosity, experimentation, tenacity as well as learning and retaining new knowledge. It also appears in other ways such as in their social behavior.

Parrots are known for being highly sociable animals – it is part of the reason they have been quite popular for pets. Here’s a sad fact for you: Evidence suggests that the reason birds such as parrots imitate human voices is because they lack the social stimulation they should get from being in the wild surrounded by their kind (also known as being lonely) – they try to compensate by mimicking their surroundings.

This social impulse was a worry in terms of Lucy’s rehabilitation. In her aviary, Lucy was able to see, hear, and communicate with the other wild birds in the area. This, of course, was an improvement from what she probably experienced while in captivity, but still not ideal. Something like ‘social preening’ (an act wherein two or more birds are engaged in grooming each other) for example is a huge and important part of socializing for these birds. Physical interaction in various forms is quite important for these birds. There was a worry Lucy might be socially under-stimulated and that it might make an eventual release and integration harder on her. Thus, an effort was made to provide Lucy with a companion while in the aviary.

Sadly, even after a dedicated effort, there had been no success in obtaining another bird. Ara would never put a healthy bird in an aviary for this reason, so a rescue was the only way for Lucy’s avail.  Nearly two months into her stay it looked like Lucy would have to endure on her own. Until…

Miracle of all miracles, another great green macaw was confiscated in the same area where Lucy had been found near Siquirres! This bird would, fittingly, come to be known as Diamond. Much like Lucy, we don’t know a whole lot about Diamond’s past other than where he was found. After his escape, he too was brought to the Jaguar Rescue Center, who once again contacted Ara.

Diamond faced slightly different challenges than Lucy. Unlike her, he showed great proficiency at all the skills you would expect a wild bird to have. For that reason, he was roughly estimated to be around 5 years old. He is a bigger bird, even for a male, and very strong. When Jaguar Rescue Center tried to ring him before bringing him back to the Ara Station, he managed to bend the thick, steel ring. It had to be removed only one or two days later so as not to squeeze or irritate his leg.

Side note: All birds at Ara Manzanillo are tagged with a ring for identification purposes, usually a closed steel ring is applied when the birds are young, and their feet are malleable. For older birds an open ring is used.

In all aspects, he is a prime candidate for release. Sadly, he faced one major obstacle. When he was found (we suspect he hadn’t been in captivity very long) it was discovered that, tragically, one of his wings had been cut, recently by the look of it. Thankfully birds molt (shed and regrow) their feathers throughout their lifetimes, so he was expected to be able to fly again. This takes a while and in the meantime, his flight muscles are going to deteriorate, so Diamond would eventually have to be retrained.

Suffice it to say, there was every expectation that with the right care, Diamond would eventually be able to return to the wild. After clearing his medical exam, he too was brought to the Ara Station.

First, Diamond was quarantined in a smaller cage for a few days before being released into the main aviary with Lucy. We were all very excited and nervous to see how the two would react to each other. Diamond was quick to take cover in some foliage at one end of the aviary, clearly frightened by the human contact and new environment. Lucy was quick to instigate interaction (which makes sense, as she was already comfortable and familiar with the environment). She was curious and started approaching cautiously from the opposite end of the branch Diamond was sitting on. When she got too close Diamond nibbed at her and she backed off - for a bit. This didn’t matter too much, we were all just happy to see them start interacting so quickly.

To put it mildly, you might describe Diamond as standoffish. Frankly, it took him less than a couple of hours to start picking fights with the outside birds. Quite a feat considering the aviary's wire mesh getting between them, but they sure gave it a go. Not the warmest welcome but certainly lively.

All this might not sound like an ideal start, but truly just seeing Diamond interact with his surroundings and, more importantly, the other birds, was an immeasurable relief.

I cannot speak of Lucy’s behavior when she first arrived since I was not there. With Diamond on the other hand, I was able to observe from the beginning, the panic and fright he experienced, every time we had to feed or interact with him in some capacity.

Some mistrust in humans is to be expected in any wild animal, indeed it is a good thing. Nevertheless, much of Diamond’s behavior was clear evidence of the traumatic experiences, he has undergone at the hands of humans. It is why we are so happy to hopefully be able to reintroduce these guys to the wild where they belong, with others of their kind.

During the following weeks, Diamond adjusted to aviary life. It was clear he had not yet fully understood the damage from the wing clipping to his flying ability. A few times I observed him trying to take flight, only to immediately take a crash landing. It was heartbreaking. Thankfully he didn’t get hurt, and with excellent climbing proficiency, he quickly learned to navigate around the aviary. With this, his confidence started to grow again. He became less paranoid around humans and continued to pick fights with the outside birds.

I do want to point out that fighting or play fighting is a way for these birds to socialize and isn’t necessarily motivated by aggression/ hostility.

The greatest change that Diamond brought was to Lucy. It was clear how excited she was, to have another parrot present, that she could properly interact with. She would follow him around, attempt various social behaviors (not always to great success), and generally copy many of his actions. Having an older, more experienced bird to learn from, was exactly what she needed.

After just a couple weeks she had improved by leaps and bounds in many areas, especially her climbing. She grew more confident; dare I say a little cocky, less shy, and more vocal. It was a beautiful transformation and one I wish I could have continued to watch.

I like to think of their relationship at the time as Diamond acting the grumpy old man, and Lucy an energetic puppy following him around.

Lucy and Diamond will probably remain in the aviary for about a year before re-release, it depends on their progress. We must ensure that they not only have the necessary skills but also the strength to survive in their new home. If successful, it would be a huge boon to Ara’s conservation efforts. Not only would it mean these two birds get to live a better life in the wild, but it also has the added benefit of adding new genes to the local gene pool.

Since the Ara Manzanillo project started with the release of a smaller number of birds, and since the law prevents the relocation of wild birds, inbreeding poses quite a problem. Ara’s main mission is to breed as many new birds as possible in the wild, to help restore the species and so, sadly, there is not much that can be done to combat this issue. That’s why getting the chance to introduce two birds from a different population is very welcome, even if the circumstances surrounding it are somewhat tragic. I, for one, cannot wait for those two to get out and wreak some havoc.

This explored only the beginning of Lucy and Diamond's story. No doubt, things have changed quite a bit since my time at Ara. Therefore, I would like to encourage anyone reading this, who has the opportunity and time to visit Ara Manzanillo to do so. Ask about the birds and how Lucy and Diamond are doing. Chances are, by the time you get to Ara, Diamond and Lucy will have been released.

If you are very motivated, take the time to volunteer. Personally, getting to play a part in the conservation and caretaking of these birds is one of the proudest and most precious things I have ever done. Great Green Macaws are an amazing species, which deserves to flourish and be admired for many generations to come. One bird at a time, we will hopefully be able to help not just Lucy and Diamond, but the entire species, on their journey back to the wild.