While the Cat’s Away…

A View Down

With Karina in Refugio accessing the internet, Jerome and I were going to do only what we wanted to do. Waking up to rain at 5am, I knew that the climbing we had scheduled for the early morning would not happen. Instead we had a leisurely breakfast and then climbed 4 trees between about 830am and 2pm, with lots of filming happening as well.

Shortly after I had awakened at 5am, I enjoyed a cup of coffee in the open air dining room, and Jerome joined me perhaps a half hour later. I used the opportunity of our being alone together to tell him again how much I enjoyed his company. It's great to be so excited about someone.

When I climbed one of my trees, the father bird was in the nest box and not going to leave to allow me to take his chicks. It took some thought and planning to come up with a strategy to distract the bird enough to take the chicks to be able to lower them in the bucket for Jerome to measure.


A View of the Canopy from a Macaw's Perspective


Later, when Jerome was climbing Macario, he elected not to drag up the bucket and line as he knew there would be no chick to measure. Once he reached the top he called down to me, “Christian! There is a chick!” I tied one end of the bucket line to the climbing rope and he had to haul it up so that I could then send up the bucket. Once the very small chick arrived safely down below for me to measure, and with Jerome dangling from the climbing rope 100+ feet above the ground, the clouds opened up and absolutely dumped. The concern was keeping the chick warm and dry in the rain, but it happens that right at the base of Macario TRC has built a small covered rest area, so the chick and I were fine. Poor Jerome had to wait in the downpour while I finished the assessment and raised the chick back up to him before he could lower himself. By the time we got the rope back in the bag and hiked back to the TRC, we were drenched. Thankfully, the rain was warm.

It’s interesting how life works sometimes. Jerome arrived at TRC hoping to film a documentary but needing much help with the filming, not knowing where he would find the help, and not really wanting to rely on the local people. I arrived at TRC needing to contribute to a cause, and wanting to form a connection with someone of a like mind. It’s been no problem finding ways for me to contribute to the macaw cause, and Jerome has been absolutely the best in terms of willingness to communicate with me on nearly every level.