Red and Green Macaws

Red and Green Macaw Gaining Courage to Drop to Claylick

It had to happen sometime -- the rain stopped! I had been promised that eventually I would see some macaws at the ¨clay lick¨, or ¨la colpa¨ as my Spanish teacher Edwin must have told me. Heading down to the colpa in only an inch of mud, I approached quietly as instructed and entered the blind, or hide. Erica, one of the researchers, had been watching the activity since 5AM. The macaws had apparently been very skittish and had not yet descended from the trees onto the clay. As luck would have it, very shortly after I arrived the avian activity increased dramatically and before I knew it there were nearly 20 Red and Green Macaws -- that´s ¨red and green¨ not ¨red¨ and ¨green¨ -- hanging all over the branches just above the colpa seemingly haggling over which choice bits of the cliff they were going to be able to claim. The bravest one I would guess moved onto the cliff itself and hanging onto it with its claws and propped by its stiff tail feathers proceeded to wolf down on the soil with much gusto. As other individuals descended they sometimes encroached on other birds´ dinner table and got a good scolding.


A Brave Macaw Eating Clay

As the feast proceeded several small boats motored past on the river creating wakes which lapped the shore and noise which attracted the attention of various macaws. At one point something spooked the birds enough that every last one of them flushed back up into the safety provided by the leafy trees above. Could have been a boat, or, as Erica said, a raptor or maybe sometime else (hmmm...on Alcatraz it would have been a rock-throwing visitor).