Parrots!

We had a lovely day! Ryan and I rented a car yesterday, and we took it to Roseau with Jen and Neil to do some shopping. Since we had a two day rental, we really wanted to use it for some fun today! We returned to Morne Diablotin National Park on a mission to see some parrots in the wild. We haven't hiked Morne Diablotin yet (it's 4,747 feet high) but we did hike Syndicate Falls (aka Milton Falls) twice before. Neil and Jen hadn't seen the falls yet, so it was new to them. While Ryan and I had done the falls before, we hadn't realized that we'd missed the Syndicate Visitor's Center and Nature Trail, which was several miles farther along this one lane, winding road with constant blind corners. Morn Diablotin is the ideal spot to see the two species of Amazonian parrot native to the island. The Jacko is a bright green parrot with a blue head and red on his wings and neck. The Sisserou is a larger parrot, darker green with a blue head.

The Visitor's Center was pretty cool- it had a plaster relief map of Dominica. This island really is steep! We enjoyed exploring the Visitor's Center before we hit the nature trail. The trail was probably only an hour long, but it took us a few hours. We really took our time, taking photos and looking for birds. Every time a bird called we would all freeze and search the local trees. At one point Jen and I were posing for a photo and heard a buzzing noise- only to whip around and see a hummingbird hovering over our heads! Our patience paid off and we saw a Sisserou Parrot, which is the national bird of Dominica and the second most rare of the Amazonian parrots. We heard a LOT more parrots than we saw- they are so loud! We also found two parrot feathers, which was pretty awesome.

The hike to Syndicate (or Milton) Falls is a pretty easy one, only about 15 minutes with two shallow river crossings. I forgot my sandals and my wonderful husband gave me piggy-back rides across the river so that I wouldn't soak my sneakers. Isn't he the best? One the walk to the trail head we heard this incredibly loud shrieking and looked up to see two beautiful Jacko parrots flying overhead. Ryan got a distant photo of the Jacko parrots, but none of the parrots landed in front of us and posed happily for photos unfortunately!

We did have a lot of fun today and we have big plans for tomorrow- but you'll have to wait to see what we're doing! If I'm not too exhausted I'll put up another post tomorrow. Ryan and I are both pretty excited! Thursday we start working for Welcoming Committee, and we'll be working everyday until Tuesday, and then we'll work the next two Sundays. Please enjoy these photos of our day today!