Birds of Paradise

Usually I only get up at 4:00am to do things like catch planes, or as we have more recently seen, be interviewed for the morning news programme. While in Belem, I added yet another reason to get up hours before the sun -- to visit Ilha dos Papagaios or Parrot Island to witness the spectacle of three to four thousand parrots waking up and starting their day. The scene was incredible!

We arrived at the Island, which is a twenty to thirty minute boat ride from Belem, at 5:30 and started to wait. We didn't have to wait long as the Alarm Clock Parrot [I am sure that a more technical name than "Alarm Clock Parrot" exists, but I do not know what it is, so Alarm Clock Parrot it will have to be] let out his wake-up screech fifteen minutes after we arrived. Immediately following the screech, all the sleeping parrots -- literally thousands of them -- get up and start flying around and around in circles, squawking as they fly. As the group continues to circle the island, couple by couple, the parrots fly off to whereever it is that they will spend their day. The circling is a mechanism used to confuse any would-be attackers and protect each couples as they fly off [they really do leave with their one mate!].

The entire thing last about an hour and by seven o'clock, all the birds are safely dispersed to their daytime homes. They will return again when night begins to fall and will sleep on the island until dawn, until the wake-up screech signals the start of a new day.

This first video is of the birds starting to fly around in complete darkness...

... while the second is as the sky begins to lighten.

Well worth the drowsiness that followed!