Hand-raising endangered yellowhead parrot chicks

Thank you so very much for your amazing support with this important micro project.

With your financial assistance, seventeen endangered yellow-headed Amazon chicks were extracted from nests at risk of poaching or overcrowding, and transported back to BBR from Payne's Creek National Park in the south of the country. They were hand-reared over a period of 3 months and are now in our ‘bush’ flight aviary away from the day-to-day activities of the centre, and the bad influence of our vocal and habituated yellow-heads. 

They will remain there until mid-May of 2021 when nesting season is in full swing again. These Amazons are different to Belize’s other species of parrots in that they nest in the pine savannah, not jungle forests. However they still need to forage in the broad leaf forests, so their nesting grounds are in very specific areas where the two habitats are adjacent. We have a release enclosure close to the ranger station in the heart of the nesting grounds and find the adult birds readily welcome the juveniles into the flock during breeding season.

Thankfully our predications of 20 to 30 extracted birds were not realised, as during the early days of the Covid-19 lock-down and curfew the poachers were not active, allowing many nests to fledge naturally. After a few weeks the poachers became complacent and employed their usual tricks of lighting fires to draw the rangers away from nest protection duty. As soon as the TIDE Head Ranger Mr Mario realised what was happening he ordered the extraction of multiple vulnerable nests including some chicks at risk of being smothered by their fast-growing siblings. It was a stressful day for us as we had no staff coverage and were operating inside curfew hours. I raced down after feeding the birds at the centre and spent the day with the team extracting and documenting the chicks as fast as it was safe to do. Of course I got a flat tyre on the way home, as if the day wasn't stressful enough! In the end though, thanks to the fast actions of the field team, the poachers only managed to take 2 chicks. Sad for those two, but it could have been so much worse.

So, for now, we have the daily task of providing nutritious food and wild enrichment whilst we wait for them to grow up and become a flock of confident juveniles. Your donations have covered the costs of extraction and hand-rearing and will go a long way toward feeding them for the remaining 9 months to release.

Thank you once again for helping with this important project and giving these 17 birds a second chance of freedom. We simply can’t do what we do without your support.

Warm regards,

Nikki and the BBR Team

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• BBR website