He conducted field surveys, taxonomy, blood sampling and other research. There he became acquainted with the island’s migrating and breeding bird species. Birdy worked for many years as a Forestry Officer with the Dominica Forestry, Wildlife and Parks Division (FWD) of the Ministry of Agriculture. So, we took the time to learn more about the endangered parrots: how their populations were fairing, how the hurricanes had impacted them, how their future looked.ĭr. The weather continued to degrade in a way that would likely discourage any Sisserou Parrots from leaving the safety of the trees. But as any birder knows, nature is mostly unpredictable.
Earlier, along the trail, our guide had shown us a Blue-headed Hummingbird that would religiously appear and perch on a specific shrub every six minutes. We laughed about putting a time clock on the birds.
Occasionally a parrot call pierced the downpour. And so, we sat-on our wet wooden bench-getting up now and then to walk to the railing overlooking the ravine, binoculars ready. It’s what draws you out of bed before dawn, guides you over far distances, and urges you along on breathlessly high, difficult switchback trails, or through dense, thorny scrub. Hope is a good thing to have as a birder. Still, though the sky may have been charged with negative ions, our hearts were charged with hope. Those conditions being a sunny, windless early morning. In the right conditions, the parrots would swoop up from the treetops, regaling ecstatic birders with their raucous squawks. Birdy’s scope was strategically situated, pointing out over a ravine toward a mountain of trees in the foothills of Morne Diablotin, where the shy Sisserou is known to flock, forage, and nest.
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