Dear Reader
It has been so long since I wrote part one of Monty’s story that there’s probably been enough time for seventeen new species of amphibian and a new mammal to have evolved, but here we are and in a moment part two will indeed appear. I do hope you will understand that my poor blogging performance is not due to out right laziness but because I’ve been exceptionally busy will an awful lot of other things. You can see for yourself on Echo’s frequently updated open-to-the public facebook page: www.facebook.com/echobonaire.org I’m putting lots of pictures up on there and I am quite sure you will love it! But now we must rapidly proceed to the much awaited
Little Monty’s Second Chance - Part Two
(First a very quick recap. I think it is because I watched E.R. as a kid but I feel a strange urge to start this recap with “Previously on WPT” which of course you have to read to yourself in a melodramatic and cinematic voice!)
Previously on WPT: Sunny day in the Caribbean. Mr and Mrs Python have eggs, chicks, fledglings and then fly to the village to eat mangos (that’s not all in the same day of course this is just a quick recap). The flight goes well. The parents look forward to eating mangoes but the kids don’t care because they still get fed by their parents. Suddenly there was danger. Monty gets knocked about the head with a big stick and he fell from the wire to the ground.
Monty was captured! We can’t say for sure but it will certainly enhance the story if we exploit all available artistic license and mention there was a brief scuffle during which he managed to bite his captor. Hoorah for Monty. His efforts were in vain however and he was tossed into a dusty old hessian sack. Poor Monty didn’t know what was happening. He was bumped and knocked against things and taken inside the house. The captor reached inside the bag and firmly grabbed poor Monty. Without asking he took Monty’s wing and stretched it open. Monty’s beautiful feathers showed vibrant reds, blues and greens but then another human appeared with scissors that shined in the light. Monty didn’t know what was about to happen or indeed what scissors were but he knew he didn’t want to be there. He could hear his family calling outside the human’s house and he struggled again for freedom but his captors were too strong. The scissors met his wing and in an instant his beautiful feathers were roughly cut. Monty would now be unable to escape. It was all a blur for poor Monty but in a moment he found himself moving places again and being put inside a cage. If his captors had their way he would spend the rest of his life, possible as many as 30 years inside this tiny space. The cage was barely big enough for him to fully open his clipped wings.
For the next 10 minutes several different humans came and stuck there face up against the cage in which Monty now found himself. The smaller ones had poked him and shouted human sounds at him but then as quickly as he had been torn from his family they left and Monty was all alone. He had never been all alone before. Even as a tiny pink chick unable to hold his head up he had had his siblings there and together they supported each other. The chance are until he himself had a Mrs Parrot sitting on eggs which would have been at least 4 years hence he would never have actually been alone. Parrots are extremely social birds and in the wild they spend their entire lives in the company of other parrots from dawn until dusk and dusk until dawn every single day they are rarely more than a few meters from their companion. But now Monty found himself alone. It made him nervous, uncomfortable, stressed and to make things yet worse the wind blew through the open window and chilled him but in his little cage he was unable to move out of the way. Poor Monty like so many captured parrots was deeply sad.
Monty’s mood moved from melancholic to morose as the sun rose and beat through the window directly on to him. He panted and felt thirst like he had never felt. He didn’t know that at the bottom of his cage there was water. He had never drunk water. Soon the sun moved further and later still it shone orange on the trees he could see through the window. He heard parrots calling and he shouted back in delight. They came closer and soon he could see them. It was of course his family. His hunger and thirst overcame his sad longing for his family and he begged and begged for food. They would not come to the house or to the cage it was too dangerous for them and so poor Monty remained hungry. Before the light faded his family, having little choice, left and once again Monty was all alone.
Rather than continue dragging out poor Monty’s sad situation any longer we shall simply gloss over the attempted force feeding of human food, the loneliness and the ever increasing hunger poor Monty felt. Similarly we’ll skip past the good citizen that alerted the authorities and how they confiscation of poor Monty so that we can get to a happier part of the tale for after all this very story is “Monty’s Second chance”!
And so it was that on a sunny afternoon a hungry and confused little parrot was deposited with the Welsh speaking parrot team leader Rhian Evans, future ambassador for Wales and as Welsh as any Welsh person (born in England) can be. In no short time Rhian and her Polish pet parrot enthusiast colleague Gabriela Hajduk had Monty stuffed full of nice fruit. Over the next weeks Monty recuperated as well as any young parrot torn from their family could. His siblings would be meeting lots of other young parrots and learning all about their environment, where to sleep at night, where to find food, and so on but Monty was not going to have that opportunity. The parrot team played with Monty, challenged him as best they could and slowly taught him to feed for himself. As they couldn’t train his flight muscles Rhian and Gabi built a huge stick pile and made him climb it. Of course the girls grew attached to Monty, particularly as he had become the most handsome of parrots but soon their role in Monty’s life was complete and they took him to the Ministry for Agriculture where he was put in a large aviary and got to meet other parrots that had also been illegally captured but then confiscated.
So Dear Reader you would be forgiven for thinking this is the end of this turbulent tale and that reaching the aviary was indeed Monty’s Second Chance but no this is not the case, goodness no! To live in a large aviary where he could be in the company of other parrots and fly 5 meters from end to end is certainly a great deal for a captive parrot but is is no comparison to living as a free parrot in the wild. Monty’s Second Chance is going to be far greater than that for he and his companions in the aviary will soon be released back into the wild so they can feed on Oliba, Shimaruku and Wayaka, and so they can fly until their wings can carry them no more. This Dear Reader will be happening in the next few days! Now I have finally eased my conscience and written Part Two of this tale I will be able to get back to writing more notes here on WPT, maybe even weekly if I get my act together! But if you want to get the very latest news you should check out www.facebook.com/echobonaire.org and please share it with your network so they can hear about the adventures and see the pictures too!
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