Medieval Torture

The View from the Canopy

As trees and nests had not been climbed for many days due to the abundance of rainy days and the lack of personnel (I was downriver sick, and an intended volunteer left to attend to an unintended pregnancy), climbing was first priority in Karina’s mind.

She and I first went out to climb, while Jerome walked yet another 5000 meter transect. I was elected unanimously to climb the first tree and graciously accepted the post. Everything began smoothly, as it seems to in these cases, but somehow, probably because it had been a couple of weeks and a bad case of diarrhea since my last climb, I forgot the steps required to descend the rope! Wracking my brains did little good, and neither did trying to explain the problem to Karina (in both English and broken Spanish). Never one to be stumped (sorry, that was bad), Karina decided I needed to be lowered from her end, but neglected to warn me ahead of time. When the rope gave way, I very nearly ended up with dirty pants, and it wouldn't have been mud that made them dirty. Putting two and two together, I realized soon enough what she was doing, and saved myself from having to do an extra load of wash. It was still embarassing not remembering. Returning to the lodge after she climbed a couple of other trees, I practiced again and again and again the sequence until I was sure that the 57 year old neurons could make the connections even when stressed (every time I climb).



The Torture Subject


Next on the agenda was the torture. For the baby macaws, that is. It is called “taking crop samples” and involves the torturess (name withheld) inserting a tube 50% larger than the diameter of the subject’s (chick’s) throat into the crop and then removing a portion of the contents for analysis. The goal of this “procedure” is to find out what the parents are feeding the babies. With Jerome hanging 100 feet above the ground waiting for us to return the chicks to him so he could put them back in the nest, the torturess, with my able assistance, attempted the foregoing procedure multiple times on both the #1 and #2 chicks, with no success, unless success is eliciting a cry for mercy from the subject. I was glad when she gave up her efforts. (Maybe she needs to retake the intubation portion of her lab work? Or maybe we could just watch the parents forage to deduce what they are feeding the chicks?)