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Manu’s First Attempt at Fledging

by Sarah Faegre

The newly-fledged Blue-throated Macaw, Goliath, is improving his flight skills bit by bit. Now his little brother Manu thinks he's ready to take the leap...





December 23rd 2007

On the evening of the 21st I located Goliath with his parents, perched amid the leaves of a small tree at the east edge of the island. I was very relieved to find him there, considering his poor flight skills when he left the nest two days earlier. Yesterday and today (the 22nd and 23rd) I heard him at the west end of the island, begging from his parents, so he must be getting around alright.

Yesterday evening as I was watching the nest, little Manu decided that his time had come and out of the nest cavity he climbed, taking the same shaky steps up the nearly vertical trunk as his brother had three days earlier. And, ironically, just as his brother did three days earlier, he tripped and fell out of the tree, crash-landing in the bushes. I gathered the angry, screeching chick up in my extra shirt and carried him back to camp to get the climbing equipment. Vicente, swinging in his hammock, looked at me curiously as I walked down the path into camp, carrying a shrieking bundle in my arms. We weighed Manu and them rushed back to the nest with the equipment, completing our task as quickly as possible, both to minimize the stress on Manu and because 7:00 p.m. (our daily radio-communication hour) was rapidly approaching. “Casi de noche,” remarked Vicente, shaking his head. Not too smart for Manu to fledge at dusk, especially since for these chicks, to fledge is to fall to the ground. Upon returning to the camp we talked to Carmen by radio. She is in Trini (Trinidad, the capital of the Beni) and will stay there until the 27th to meet Steve and fly with him to Veintiuno. Poor Carmen, alone in Trini over Christmas. And poor Steve, alone, who-knows-where, trying to get to Trini! He was supposed to arrive on the 19th or the 20th. The latest news is that he will arrive on the 26th.

So now I sit in the blind, watching the nest where Manu is sitting tight. Vicente and I were sure that he would re-fledge early this morning, especially since Goliath re-fledged very quickly after being put back in his nest. Vicente arrived at the blind at 6 a.m. and watched until 8:30, hoping to see Manu fledge. It is now almost 10:30 and Manu is still in the nest.

The parents haven’t been around much and I don’t believe a chick would leave its nest without the parents present, so this could be a factor in Manu’s apparent reluctance to leave this morning. It is interesting to note that when Manu climbed out of the nest yesterday the adults, though present, did not fly to him and preen him or feed him as I observed with Goliath. They stayed a short distance away, cawing quietly, and Manu had been out of the nest for less than five minutes when we fell. Silly bird. I joked with Vicente that a new, ground-dwelling sub-species of Blue-throated Macaw is evolving—Barba Azul Corre-por-suelo. “The chicks think it’s normal for Blue-throated Macaws to spend time on the ground,” I joked, referring to the chicks’ weekly “ground time” when they are lowered from their nests for measurement and health checks. “They say, ‘every few days we wander around on the ground y no pasa nada’ (i.e. when we take them to the ground to measure them during nest checks). They don’t realize that normally BTMs do not run around on the ground.”

Of course, in reality it is not a joking matter, but rather something that is both concerning (from a conservation point of view) and interesting to me as a scientist. How common is it for macaw chicks (or other parrot chicks) to fledge onto the ground and climb their first tree, rather than flying into it from the nest? In Argentina I observed two out of 17 radio-collared Blue-fronted Amazon chicks fledge onto the ground, and both of these birds survived for the entire study period (2 months) without intervention. Non-intervention is a risk we can't afford to take with a critically endangered species, such as the Blue-throated Macaw, but the question remains open as to how rare it really is for a macaw chick to end up on the ground in the day or two after fledging.

Posted by Sarah Faegre on 05/19 at 09:44 PM
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Want to Experience the Life of a field biologist, working with wild Blue-throated Macaws?

by Sarah Faegre

Please check back often to read my chronological journal updates from the 2007-2008 field season in Bolivia.

I have been back from the Bolivian savannahs for about 2 months now and since my return I have been posting my journal entries, bit by bit, on my WPT blog site. These entries come straight from my field journal, which was my only writing option for the 3 months that I worked in the field. I will continue to release "chunks" of my journal entries, which are backdated appropriately, to the date they were actually written. All of my entries thus far can be accessed by scrolling to the last page of my blog.

Please note that the names of estancias and specific work locations have been changed, for the protection of the macaws. Everything else is straight from my journal, as I wrote it in the field.

Check back often to hear the next part of the story!

Posted by Sarah Faegre on 05/12 at 07:59 PM
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Alone on Isla Chiquita, listening to the Rare-maned Wolf

by Sarah Faegre

I spend a few days alone at the camp, while Vicente helps caravan all the other volunteers across savannahs and rivers to an estancia on higher ground. The four of them, Carlos, Sarah D., Matthew and Jose, have finished their time with the project and will wait to be picked up by a small plane, weather permitting, and taken out to Trinidad--the capital city of the Beni province of Bolivia. In the meantime, I keep track of the macaw chicks and find peace in the solitude of Isla Chiquita.





Photo taken by Louise Emmons (from article "The Secret Wolf" on the web at : http://nationalzoo.si.edu/Publications/ZooGoer/2004/6/manedwolves.cfm)

December 21st

Day number four solita (alone) here at the campamento—not another human being for miles all around. Lying in my tent with the rain fly off to better sleep through the still, hot night, I hear the rare-maned wolf for the first time. As I stare up at the silhouetted trees and the shadows cast by the nearly full moon, the howl-bark of the rare-maned wolf sends a shiver down my spine. Again and again, from the savannah just off the edge of the island, maybe just one hundred meters away, the wolf repeats his horrible shriek every 10-15 seconds for several minutes. Vicente and the other Bolivians always describe the voice of this wolf as “feisimo” (very ugly/horrible), which I thought a bit strange. How could a wolf howl be so horrid? But now I understand. It is not a howl, nor even a bark. It is a monotonously repeated shriek. Oh—there it is again, as I write. A little farther away now, maybe on island 2. And the pygmy owls are going mad, one giving the typical, staccato whistle and another giving a yelping call. I wonder what the rare-maned wolf eats. Is it actually a wolf or is it more closely related to a fox? Its shriek sounds similar to the “bark” of a fox I’ve heard in Argentina. Similar, but feisimo. There it goes again, now closer. Very, very close. I think I will go look for it.


December 22nd

Day 5 solita. I actually quite enjoy working alone out here. I am never sad or scared. At times I am bored, particularly in the sweltering, mosquito-filled afternoons, between lunch and the afternoon nest watch. But that is normally a time of boredom, alone or not. The last two nights I have taken to swinging in my hammock before I go to bed—sitting cross-legged under the moonlight, and rocking fast enough that the mosquitoes have a harder time biting me, and singing. I sing all the songs I know, which is not very many. Sometimes I hear strange noises and I stop singing to listen—the strange whistling “Wooeee-Chiu” bird. Pygmy owls. The horrible howl-bark of the rare-maned wolf. Last night I couldn’t sleep. The moon was bright. It was a hot, still night. The repetitive shriek of the strange, solitary canid that few people in the world have seen.

Around midnight I had to chase a snorting bull off the island—what a way to disturb my magical, moonlit night. Just me, all alone in the wilderness. “Get out!” I yell at the lumbering, hump-backed bull. He stares at me, eyes shining green in the reflection of my headlamp. He doesn’t move. “Out,” I yell again, this time throwing a large bone at him. The bull crashes off through the bushes, snorting and I pursue it to make sure it leaves the island. Finally I hear its clunking footsteps turn to wet, slurping sounds as it wades through the flooded savannah, in search of some other island respite without an aggressive, bi-pedal monkey. I trot back to my tent, brushing mosquitoes off my arms and legs as I go. What would the world be like without cows? What would the world be like without humans?

10:00 a.m. In the escondite (blind)

Oh little Manu, don’t fledge yet. You’re not ready. I’m not ready for you to be ready because then everything will change again and I don’t want to leave the campamento yet. Truth be told, I think Manu will fledge before Christmas. Yesterday Vicente was supposed to come to the campamento with Steve (a friend of mine from home who will be joining the project for the next month or two), so I am expecting him today or tomorrow. Too bad I can never get the radio to work, so I have no idea what the latest news is (on Steve’s arrival, among other things). How happy I will be if I return to camp to find Steve waiting there with Vicente. Or if I am lounging in my hammock or cooking over the fire and in the distance I see two horses approaching.

Notes on being alone:

Day 4, I begin to talk to myself and make strange noises—mostly imitating all the animals I hear. I deside to start practicing gymnastics during the hot, boring afternoons since there is no one here to see how ridiculous I look. I’m surprised by how good I am at handstands. The mosquitoes bite my armpits. If Vicente were here, would he finally say, “Yes, there are a lot of mosquitoes.”? I think there are a lot. Being alone won’t make me go crazy, but the mosquitoes might.


5:45 p.m.

Vicente arrived this afternoon…alone. I am sad that Steve will not get to see the campamento. Only five more days until he and Carmen arrive…as long as it doesn’t rain so much that the runway at the nearest estancia floods. So, that is the new plan—the morning of December 27th Carmen and Steve will arrive by plane at the estancia Veinti-uno. So much craziness and changes in plan. Since it’s supposed to come on the 27th, I suppose the plane will actually touch by New Years. In the meantime, Vicente and I will continue to watch Manu, who will fledge any day now, and to keep track of the already fledged (but not very mobile) Goliath.

Posted by Sarah Faegre on 12/22 at 06:35 PM
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To Fly or To Fall

by Sarah Faegre

Goliath is out of the nest, and I was lucky enough to witness the event!

19 December 2007

It is 6 a.m. when I arrive at the blind. I have been watching this nest every day for a month now and for the past week Goliath, the larger of the two chicks, has been poking his head out of the cavity entrance. With binoculars I can see him very clearly from where I sit in the little, palm-branch blind, 20 meters from the nest tree. Shortly after sunrise I watch him as he climbs to the entrance and looks around at the outside world, blinking his big, dark baby eyes. I smile as I watch him: gorgeous and majestic, yet clown-like and clumsy. Still a big baby—gawky and tripping over himself, making awkward attempts to preen while perched. Now and then, a yawn escapes from the big, black beak.

At 8 a.m., as his parents fly into the area and perch in a nearby tree, Goliath takes his first cautious steps out of the nest cavity. He stands and wobbles above the cavity entrance on the steeply angled trunk. He grips the bark, his sharp claws barely puncturing the surface of the giant hardwood, and begins to flap his wings. His body bounces from side to side to the rhythm of still-uncoordinated wing beats, threatening to tear him from the tree. His parents fly to the branch above him and he immediately becomes braver, climbing up the trunk to the first fork, 2 meters above the nest cavity and about 15 meters above the ground. He flaps his wings, trips over his feet and starts to fall, but uses his wings and beak to pull himself back up to the fork. He looks more like a kitten learning how to climb than like a bird. “Don’t fall, Goliath,” I say in my mind. “Don’t get too brave—you’re still stub-tailed, skinny and clumsy and it’s a long way down.”

In the following hours I watch as his parents lavish attention upon him—caressing and nibbling him, preening each feather on his body. He bows his head until his beak touches the bark, his eyes half closed, feathers raised to facilitate the gentle nibbles of his parents. Goliath leans to the left, raising his right wing, enjoying his mother’s delicate preening of his wingpit and side. He leans to the right and his father preens the other side. His parents nibble the tiny feathers and bare skin around his face and proceed down his crop to his belly. Gentle, methodical, and very, very thorough. Watching the three of them together is one of the most beautiful scenes I have ever observed in nature. The display of tenderness—the finesse with which mom and dad preen their chick—brings tears to my eyes. At one point, while mom is preening Goliath, dad moves over to the other side and begins to preen mom. It is a picture of absolute love: the chick with his head bowed to the ground, mom moving her tongue and bill tip along his tiny cheek feathers, and dad nudging his head under mom’s wing to preen her auxiliaries (wingpits), underwing coverts and upper leg.



Meanwhile, little Manu (the younger sibling) seems to feel terribly left out, proclaiming his displeasure by perching at the cavity entrance and squawking loudly. When mom finishes preening Goliath she climbs down the trunk and enters the nest cavity to attend to Manu and Goliath seems to take the cessation in preening as an opportunity to traipse higher. He is about to reach the next fork, with dad right behind him trying to preen him as he climbs when…Goliath slips. He flaps madly, but it’s too late and I hear his frantic wing beats descend to a crash as he falls into a patch of bromeliads at the base of the nest tree. The father looks fairly shocked and simply stares down as his chick screeches from the ground. Mom immediately pops her head out of the cavity to see what’s going on and the babysitter (me) jumps out of the blind and goes to help the fallen chick.

Upon seeing my approach, the parents screech with distress, circling the nest tree several times before leaving the area. Goliath also screeches in distress and tries to fly away but makes no progress; he can’t fly and his wings barely help to increase his groundspeed as he waddles away from me. I pick him up easily and he calms down, probably remembering that human touch is more annoying than harmful and is often associated with food. I speak to him as I carry him back to camp with me to get the climbing equipment. I tell him that he is lucky—most chicks only get to fledge once. But lucky Goliath has a babysitter and a fan club of people all around the world who care that he fledges successfully, so he will be one of the few wild parrots to get a second chance at fledging.



I return to the nest tree with the climbing equipment, put the rope up and begin to ascend. “Please just stay put until you can fly,” I command him as I pull him out of my backpack and ease him into the cavity from which he prematurely bailed. Little Manu screeches loudly from the nest floor and Goliath climbs up and out of sight inside the tree. With my mission completed, I attach the figure-8, unclip my ascenders, and slide to the ground. I quickly gather my climbing equipment and walk back to the blind. There is no sight or sound from the chicks for the next two hours and I hope that they will stay put while I take a break and eat lunch in camp.


20 December 2007

I arrive at the blind at 7:00 a.m and see one chick poking its head out of the cavity entrance. Is this Goliath or did Goliath already fledge? Is he high in a tree with his parents? Could he have fledged yesterday during my lunch break and been eaten by a predator? At 7:15 the chick retracts his head and I am left staring at the empty cavity entrance and listening to all the bird sounds around me, wondering if Goliath is in or out. At 7:38 I hear the familiar, whiny call of the adults, arriving nearby. They perch out of sight, but I can hear them, about twenty-five meters from the nest tree, talking quietly…with Goliath? There are definitely chick sounds coming from that direction and as my curiosity becomes overwhelming I sneak out of the blind to take a look. I creep towards the adults’ muffled trills and squawks, trying to be silent in my giant, mud-covered, rubber boots. Luckily, the adults’ attention is so focused on something else that they don’t notice my arrival—and that “something else” I discover, as I scan the area around me, is Goliath! But the poor stub-tailed thing doesn’t look like he is much better off than when I rescued him from the ground: he is clinging to a dead, broken, precariously hanging branch in a small, scraggly Motacu Palm, about six meters off the ground.

Goliath looks at me, seeming much less concerned by my presence than by his problematic situation. He tries to climb higher, gripping the branch and pulling himself up with his beak until suddenly, noticing his beak near the bend of his wing, he seems to forget his predicament and begins to nibble his wrist feathers. Almost immediately he loses his balance and flaps his wings madly, clambering back onto the palm branch. “What do I do,” I wonder. I don’t want to disturb the family at this extremely sensitive time, but I also can’t just go back to the blind and say, “qué será, será” when a Blue-throated Macaw chick is dangling from a dead branch, probably can’t fly yet, and would be an easy target for any predator in the area. My solution? The portable Blue-throated Macaw babysitting unit (a.k.a. the portable blind).

I spend 15 minutes silently moving the portable blind to within view of Goliath, although despite my efforts, the adults see me and fly away, screeching. Luckily, only three minutes after I have settled in, the parents return and renew their quiet trills of encouragement to the chick, who has barely moved since I found him here.

I wonder how long he has been in this tree? One thing is clear: he did not arrive in his current position by flying; he climbed from the ground. And if he has already fallen to the ground twice, then what’s to say that he won’t fall again? I think to myself that surely this scrawny, stub-tailed chick can not yet fly, and as I see his posturing in preparation for take off I imagine that his trajectory will end with him on the ground. “Do I really want a video of a Blue-throated Macaw chick biffing his flight and crashing into the ground,” I wonder as I click my camera into video mode. The howler monkeys sing in full force in the background, almost blocking out the quiet trills of the parents, who seem to be saying, “come on, you can do it.”

And then, with a display of all the force in his tiny body, Goliath pushes off from the branch and flies, straight through the trees and off the island, his parents close behind him. And so, at 8:45 a.m., the parents and their newly fledged chick disappeared as silhouettes over the golden savannah.

Click on the link below to see footage of Goliath's first flight:

Posted by Sarah Faegre on 12/20 at 01:50 PM
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