The Crappiest of Days

I know I haven’t *really* updated this thing in ages, but I also can’t think about one thing to write extensively about, so this is going to be a couple random things.

During metabolics, we have to take bird temperatures after they’ve been “cooking” at 10 and 34 degrees C (with 20 and 30 degrees thrown in there as well). To do this, we stick a little thermometer up their butt. They don’t seem to like that. Some birds wriggle the entire time while others are paralyzed with fear. (Don’t worry – the thermometer doesn’t hurt them and they are fine afterward.) Of course, some of them like to get back at us for shoving things up their butt by waiting until the best (worst) time to decide to poop. They just sat in a nice little box lined with paper for over an hour, but a number of them decide that they have to go right when the thermometer starts going in. With smaller birds it’s not really a big deal – you get some poop on your hand. It’s the bigger ones that are more terrifying. For instance, one night I had a motmot in metabolics. Motmots are … as big as a breadbox, if you ignore the tail. Maybe marginally smaller? (I’ve forgotten how big loaves of bread are.) Anyways, with bigger birds, they’re not just squeezing out a tiny little turd into your hand… it’s a big one. And they seem to expel it from their bodies with much more force than the little birds. So when I stuck the thermometer up the motmot’s butt right when he decided to drop a deuce, it was like sticking my thumb over a garden hose. I had motmot shit on my forehead, glasses, hand, knee, and the floor. The person who was standing next to me to get her first ever look at a motmot actually took several steps back while saying, “oh jesus”. I would be mad at the motmot, but considering I was keeping it trapped in a box all night and shoving things up his butt, pooping on me was pretty much his only defensive mechanism. I should also say that that was not the first bird to poop on my face, and it probably won’t be the last.

Halloween is one of my favorite holidays, so I was pretty excited to dress up this year. I told people weeks in advance that there would be a costume contest and that they should start planning how to use jungle materials. It turns out that I would be the only contestant. For several days I made mental notes of where certain types and colors of leaves were, which types of grasses were best to use as string, and what tools I would need to construct my Scaly-Naped Parrot masterpiece (I had to get the details right because I’m working with bird-people!). The morning of the 31st I spent several hours gathering materials and weaving everything together so that it was … as perfect as perfect can be when you’re in the jungle and weaving leaves together with more leaves. In other words, it was awesome. It didn’t matter that no one else dressed up because, let’s be honest, they would’ve come in second (in my completely unbiased opinion). That day the lodge staff invited us to have lunch with them, and then to play volleyball. Unfortunately I couldn’t really play, given the wings and all, so I was a designated cheerleader. By that point most everyone was used to the fact that I was dressed up as a parrot for the day… except Senior Demetrio, the guy who lives next to the field we were playing on. He walked past me a couple times and just stared, but kept on walking. I sat on a stool on the sidelines (couldn’t sit on the ground because of the tail) and took pictures and whatnot, until it started raining. We all went to take cover in Senior Demetrio’s place, but there were nearly 15 of us so it was a tight squeeze. That is, 14 people and 1 parrot. Senior Demetrio – and now his wife, too – was still staring at me. When my tail bent funny as I tried to sit on my stool, he asked someone next to him (in Spanish) why I looked like that. I responded enthusiastically that it was my “clothes for Halloween”! One of the Peruvian lodge employees explained that Halloween is really only celebrated in big cities like Cusco and Lima, and usually only the children dress up. Whaaat?! I’d like to think that I brought some culture down the Manu Road that day. That, or I’m just the crazy white girl who wore green long johns and covered herself in leaves.

More later!