Four Days

 Another day, another dawn, and so it goes.  Dawn on Saturday, February 12 was intense and stunning.  I took tons of photos and pared them down to 2 for your eyes.

So intense it was almost scary.

Mellowing a bit.

The lovely light shows off our refurbished beach (with the cement blocks are protecting the red mangrove seedlings we transplanted).  A newly designed turtle ramp will go at the bottom left.

Finally, the preserved lemons were ready to use.  I made  chicken tangine using 2 recipes from the New York Times as guides.  I used the cooking method of one recipe and the additional ingredients of the second recipe.  Lots of spices involved - cumin, ground coriander, cinnamon, ginger, garlic, allspice, and fresh cilantro.  Also kalamata olives, green olives, tomatoes, onion, garlic.  And don't forget the preserved lemons!  It was not difficult and tasted fantastic.  Next time I will omit the kalamata olives, they were too dominant,  and I will be sure to have turmeric on hand.   And I won't hold back on the lemon!  The flavor of the lemon made all the other flavors dance together, especially on the second day.

Chicken tangine, ready to serve.

Dawn on Sunday was slightly more sedate.

If you click to enlarge, you might be able to see Venus, just to the right of center in the upper third of the image.

 Finally, one of the parrots that we hear every day cooperated  by sitting on a bare branch in the gumbo limbo tree behind our back veranda.  I thought is was a yellow headed parrot, but Nikki Buxton of Belize Bird Rescue told me it is a red lored parrot.  Still hoping for a photo op of a yellow head.

What a beauty!  Its mate was hiding in the leaves and friends were scattered throughout other nearby trees.  

The weather changed on Monday, with clouds and rain moving slowly in.  Not good conditions for photography.  But at least there was no wind to speak of and the sea has been calm.  It is still gloomy and drizzling today.

Not the conditions the passengers on the cruise were expecting!

Even now at midday, it is quite cool.  I have a lentil casserole in the oven to get the house a bit warmer.  

One blanket may not be enough!

Stay warm and cozy where ever you are.

Belize Bird Rescue

We stopped for lunch at Corkers in Belmopan to eat on their shady open air terrace before we went to pay a visit to the nearby Belize Bird Rescue.  And who should we see also having lunch there but Nikki Buxton, who along with her husband founded BBR in 2004 with the original goal of rehabilitating captured parrots for release back into the wild.  Their work has expanded over the years to include veterinary care for injured wild birds of any species (song birds to birds of prey), permanent housing for birds that cannot be returned to the wild, hand-rearing baby parrots that were at risk of poaching for the lucrative (and illegal) wild bird trade, and support for birds that still need a little help  but can live freely.  The goal is to get as many birds back into the wild as they can.  They have an amazing facility and have built up a cadre of international and local veterinary and trained volunteers to support the massive work they do.  In fact, Nikki was dining with 3 volunteers/colleagues who had just arrived that morning and were on their way to BBR.  It was also no surprise that they were lunching at Corkers, which is owned by Nikki's daughter and gives a portion of its profit to support BBR.  Nikki's passion is parrots, especially the endangered yellow-headed parrot.  BBR's yellow-headed parrot program, which they began in 2014, has reintroduced more than 150 yellow-headed back into the wild at two sites.  You can check out this BBR website to see the work they do for the yellow-headed parrots.   

We had an all too short visit to BBR, but were able to see - hear! - lots of parrots and get some nice photos.  There was also some excitement with a happy ending!

We took a few photos of these two white-crowned parrots which get to fly free, but still need feeding support.  They were very inquisitive.  I love how they raise their white crowns when they talk to you.

Red-lored parrot.  If I remember correctly this individual is not releasable and is a permanent resident of BBR.  We see wild red-lored parrots at our place.

Quite a few yellow-headed parrots in this enclosure.  In nature, they live in flocks and this enclosure is large enough to house a small flock.   

Every day we see or hear a flock of yellow-headed parrots as they feed on papayas, mangos, craboo, and other fruit trees at our place.  Their wild presence here is due entirely to the yellow-headed parrot program of BBR.  One of their release sites at Payne's Creek National Park is only 8.5 miles from us as the parrot flies.

Now for the excitement.  As we were touring the enclosures, Jonathan noticed that 2 birds had gotten out of their own enclosure.  These are 2 huge macaws - Bella, a blue and gold macaw, and Kat, a Catalina macaw which is a hybrid between a blue and gold and a scarlet macaw.  These 2 birds, although healthy, are not releasable because they are not native to Belize.  So there was some consternation at seeing them out of their enclosure.  The visiting avian vet was talking to one of the employees about capture strategies involving nets and boxes while another employee ran to get Nikki.  Nikki arrived with a tray of peanuts and you can see the rest for yourself . . .

What an amazing display of Nikki's rapport with the macaws!  Because they trusted her, she was able to lure them into an enclosure with  very little fuss and no trauma.  They wouldn't go in just for the peanuts - they wanted Nikki!  You can see why Dennis and I are proud to support BBR; they are passionate about birds and work tirelessly to keep birds flying free.