Looking for a new home

No, we are quite happy in our home and Bed&Breakfast (www.hotelheliconiapanama.com), but a pair of great green macaws (Ara ambiguous) in Cerro Hoya NP, near Flores, is urgently looking for a new home. The old one has succumbed to their constant remodeling efforts. The pair kept enlarging the natural nesting hole in a large cuipo (Cvanillesia platanifolia) and this year, the tree just broke off at the nesting site during a storm.

Great green macaws like to nest in natural holes in trees, which they make larger if needed. And that is usually needed, because Great green macaws are big birds (80 cm long) and they like large nesting holes. At least 90 cm diameter. And they like to be high up in a tree, preferably more than 25 m above the ground. Such places are scarce and once they have found one, macaws tend to use the nest year after year, like the pair in Cerro Hoya. Finding a new nesting hole is not easy. Due to large scale deforestation, large trees are very scarce and large trees with natural holes in them are even scarcer.

To help them out, a nest box had to be made. Not just any nest box, but one with a diameter of 90 cm, a false ceiling to fool forest falcons (who love macaw chicks). Said nest box has to be hoisted 25 m high into a tree that only starts thinking about producing branches when it gets about 30 m high.

To get this done, the Panamanian NGO Avifauna Eugene Eisenmann (www.avifauna.org.pa) organized a team of specialists. We had two tree climbers from the USA (Joe and David), an American specialist in Macaw Ecology who lives in Panama (Gwen), a Cuban specialist in parrot nest boxes and parrot breeding ecology (Maikel), a Panamanian specialist in artificial nests (Angel) and a few assistants from Panama and Holland.
In August a first attempt was made to get a line into the Cuipo tree, but that failed. The tree was standing on a steep hill side, there was a lot of vegetation around it and it was pouring down. The only one who climbed a tree, was Justino, who had to remove a branch from another tree to give a better view of the target branch. But Joe and David came back in December and this time, they managed to climb the tree. In the end, the first branch was about 40 m high, which also explained why it was difficult to get a line up.

The week before Joe and David arrived, Justino and his brother had already built a nest box, but Maikel still had to install a false ceiling. And we had to drill some drainiage holes. Macaws are not known for keeping a clean home. A second nest was made out of a 210 liter plastic drum and a third was built according to the Cuban method. This method consists of building a frame out of sturdy wire mesh and draping hessian cloth soaked in cement over the frame. Once dry, a second layer of cement mixed with saw dust and wood glue is applied to give the nest a more natural look and to improve insulation against heat. It also results in a very heavy nest box when you make it 90 cm diameter. We estimate the total weight at around 50 kg.

To put a nest box like that you need more than a few rusty nails or a piece of rope. Especially because macaws are very destructive. So we needed some proper steel cable, covered in plastic to prevent rust. That type of cable cannot be tied in a knot, so you need special whatsamacallits and you need some serious cutters to cut the right length. So Loes and Beatriz (director of Avifauna) went on a shopping trip. In the mean time, a line was put up in the second tree. That was no easy task, the second tree had its base covered in lianas and other vegetation. This earned the tree a name we cannot publish here.

But in the end, we managed to put the two nests up. Kees also climbed up the first tree and can affirm that the view from up there is very nice. On a clear day you can see Coiba island from the nest. By Friday we had two nests up and the third nest was drying. That one will be put up by the end of February 2010. Perhaps not in tim e for this breeding season, but we will be in time for next year.

After all this hard work, we went to Cobachon, at the other side of Azuero to have a look at a natural nest. The macaws were not yet there, but the view from there was beautiful. It is obvious that macaws like a room with a view.

You can see pictures n www.flickr.com/photos/tanagertourism