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The only thing worse than not seeing a bird you've longed to lay your eyes on for years is having your son see it first.  My oldest son had the privilege of serving on a missions trip to Brazil during the World Cup this past June.  He came home and said "oh yeah, and by the way, I saw a scarlet macaw while I was there, mom.  It was spectacular!"  Shut up! 

I do love hearing from friends who visit exotic places and tell me they saw a specific bird while there.  This means two things.  The fact that I love birds has opened their eyes to the fact that birds are actually out there, and that they care enough to mention it to me.  What this also means is that they have likely seen a bird I would kill to see and they don't even realize how lucky they are! 

When my son was in Brazil, he was probably not aware that just standing in the street afforded him the opportunity to see birds that would be life birds for me.  If I stood on that same street I would be jumping up and down in pure ecstasy over the wildlife that surrounded me.  He was more excited about soccer.  Can you imagine?  Soccer?  Now I like soccer just as much as the next female who appreciates young, fit men with tight shirts, tight buns and muscular legs, but I'd give that up in a heartbeat to see the birds of Brazil.  Wait, what am I saying?  Let me think . . . yeah, I'd still choose the birds.

 

Hah!  I saw a scarlet macaw in Costa Rica!  Craig spotted it's tail sticking out of a nesting cavity in a tree on a river boat trip we took to find, you guessed it, scarlet macaws!  We stopped the boat, waited and little by little, the bird, turned around, stuck just his head out of the hole then slowly hopped out onto a nearby branch and preened himself.  If I were writing this with pen, the words would be smudged right now from drool.  You see these birds in zoos, and think, "hmm, nice."  But in the wild?  What?  I couldn't contain myself.  Craig took photos like crazy and the guide took photos with my little snap and shoot camera through the lens of his spotting scope.  And then, just like that, the macaw flew away, leaving me with an unforgettable memory.

I repeated this story to my son when we got home, happy to report he wasn't the only one in the family who'd seen a macaw, and he blithely replied, "Yeah, but did you see five of them flying in formation right over your head?"  Rotten kid.

Scarlet Macaw - photo taken through a spotting scope