Dear Olivia,
First of all I’d like to say how much I love the loras! There seem to be lots of loras around my house and normally I don’t mind but they can seem so noisy especially in the morning when I am trying to sleep. So I was wondering if you could tell me how it is possible for people to say the lora is endangered when there are so many on the island?
Hope your chicks are doing well, best wishes.
Florence Depondt-Sachdev

Dear Florence,
Well, this is a very important question that you have raised and I am delighted to answer it for my last piece this season. You see my chicks have fledged and now I am just too busy trying to keep track of them that I simply won’t have time to write anymore this year. We loras are very social birds and we tend to forage together in groups as this is a lot more fun and together we can keep an better look out for danger. You will seldom see a lone lora (except in a cage!). You can be forgiven for thinking that the lora is overly abundant when my friends visit your garden but really our numbers are relatively small. If you look at other lora species in mainland South America you will see that there are tens of thousands of them whereas there are probably less than 5,000 yellow -shouldered amazons (parrots like me!) in total. The yellow-shouldered Amazon is found on mainland Venezuela and some other islands as well as Bonaire. Our population here is one of the most important though. On Isla Margarita they have more loras but they face more problems. Poaching continues to be a serious problem for those birds and the humans in Venezuela generally are not as well informed as Bonaireans! The people here are aware the loras are protected. The parrot boys are also doing a good job of finding out the problems we face and raising awareness globally of our endangered status. It is true, the number of loras on Bonaire has increased in the last few years. I myself have managed to have nine chicks leave my nest in the last three years, but sadly not all of them survived. The good rains and reduced poaching have been great for us. It is important though that the lora population is allowed to increase as this is necessary to secure our future. We know that during some years there is very little rain and in these times many loras will die. This is unpleasant but a natural process. For the population on Bonaire to survive and prosper in the future we need to have strong birds who can make it through these periods and this comes from a having a larger population. I’m sure you have heard the phrase, “survival of the fittest.” It may not be just a drought though, it may be an outbreak of disease or a natural disaster such as a “major” hurricane. So finally this leads me to my last point. I do hope you are still with me, dear Florence! You may now ask why do we protect endangered animals. It would seem the lora is doing well so why must you continue to protect us? There are many reasons… Lets start with aesthetic reasons. Many people appreciate our beauty and charisma. If you would only get out of bed early enough you would see that a group of loras can be a very entertaining spectacle. This leads me to my second justification: you humans also benefit from there being loras on the island. We are an attraction for people to come and see and some people are smart enough to make money from simply showing other humans where we are. The loras also play a role in maintaining the whole ecosystem on Bonaire. For example we eat fruits and distribute seeds and this helps many plants species. The ecosystem is like a big spider’s web and when you lose one species it affects the whole web. My final point is a moral justification for protecting species. Just because you humans can take over the world it doesn’t give you the right to exterminate as many species as you have been doing. So have a little heart and watch out for us would you!
Best wishes, Olivia

EMPTY NEST
Dear Olivia,
It has been really wonderful watching the development of your chicks over the past weeks. The laying of your eggs, hatching of the chicks and the change from naked hatchlings into fully feathered parrots has been unique and exciting. What I am left wondering is what happens to these chicks now that they have left the nest and the view of the Parrot Watch camera. Do you stay together or are they left to fend for themselves.
Sincerely, Giovanni

Dear Giovanni,
Watching my chicks grow into strong young parrots makes me very proud indeed. The moment of fledging when they leave the nest is a particular highlight. It is great for us to leave the nest to air out for next year; a confined space full of adolescents can get awfully smelly after a while. To begin with they will depend on Oswald and myself for food whilst they explore the world they have entered. It is quite bewildering for them when they first find out how much more island there is than the view from the nest hole. They also have to let their flight feathers finish developing and build up their strength so they don’t fly very far to begin with. There is much for them to learn such as which trees produce the tastiest food and where they can be found. It takes the fledglings about two months to become fully independent. Eventually we have to wean them as they continue to beg for food when they really should be foraging for themselves. At this time we must be rather cold hearted and ignore their pleas for food until they get the idea. Two months is really not such a long time though; some of our relatives from the mainland, the macaws, pander to the demands of their children for an entire year before managing to wean them! Once they become independent we all join up with the large flocks again and they start to mix with other parrots at the roosts and feeding sites where eventually they will find a partner and have chicks of their own. Thank you all for your questions this season. I have enjoyed answering them, till next time good bye.
Olivia Parrot (Tom Little)

FEEDING CHICKS
Dear Oliva,
I have very much enjoyed reading your articles and watching your videos on the Parrotwatch website. I am very impressed that you and Oswald do so well in bringing up all those chicks. I have been wondering though, how do you ensure that all the hungry chicks get a fair share of the food that you collect and make sure that the bigger ones don’t just push the others out of the way and take it all?
Geraldine

Dear Geraldine,
I’m so glad that many people, such as yourself, are enjoying watching my chicks grow on the internet. When we arrive with the food we have gathered Oswald and I tend to take it in turns to go into the nest and give the children the food we have gathered from plants in the mondi. They hear us arrive and start begging for the food, making quite a racket I can tell you. Now they are older they can be quite boisterous as well running to the front of the nest, trying to be the first fed. We parrots tend to gauge who is the most in need by who is begging the loudest so they generally go first. We also try to share out the food as evenly as possible making sure that any smaller chicks pushed to the back also get a good feed. Sadly there are times, however, when food is short and we have to arrange things differently in order to ensure some of our chicks survive. Here in Bonaire the seasonal weather is not always predictable and we parrots, as well as some other birds, hatch our chicks asynchronously to ensure that the chicks in the nest are a range of different ages. When times are hard and, sadly, we cannot collect enough food, this allows us to easily select the larger chicks to feed and means we haven’t wasted too much effort on the chicks that won’t make it. Thankfully this year we are doing very well for food and we can feed everybody!
Olivia Parrot

STEALING BABIES
Dear Olivia,
I was extremely shocked last week to read of the chicks poached from one of the nests that the parrotwatch team have been monitoring. For a human family this would be an absolute tragedy to lose four babies in one fell swoop. I was wanting to know how easy you Loras find it to pick up the pieces after such an event. It must be terrible for the parents of those chicks who have invested so much in raising them.
Carlos

Dear Carlos,
Thank you for your sympathy. I will pass on your condolences to the family concerned. Although these atrocities still occur every year here on Bonaire it still comes as a distressing shock that people still take chicks from the wild, especially at such a young age when they are difficult to take care of. Studies you humans have done on adult parrots have concluded that we are at least as intelligent as a five year old child (the child in question must have been an absolute genius in my opinion!). The parrots in those tests could identify colours, shapes and sizes. They could also count and even conjugate verbs. How do you think a five year old child would feel if you took away their family? Loras are extremely social birds too. You need only visit Dos Pos late in the year when we form flocks of over 100 birds. We notice when individuals disappear, so losing all our chicks in one year is very traumatic. It is not as if we can simply re-nest either. The number of breeding efforts we can make are limited by our biology and we also time it so our chicks hatch when there is the most food. Starting again now simply isn’t an option. These are sad times for Loras.
Thanks again for your concern,
Olivia Parrot

WHAT’S THE CAUSE
Dear Olivia,
I have been distressed to read about the loss of chicks that some of your contemporaries have suffered this season. Is this unusual or are chicks and nests lost during every breeding season? What is the cause of such losses?
Maritza

Dear Maritza,
It is terrible when these things happen, but alas they do. Every breeding season Loras unfortunately lose chicks or nests. Some years are much worse than others. In a particularly dry year food shortages may lead to the starvation of the youngest chicks. We rely on good years to boost our population. The reasons for failures are varied and happen at different times. Chicks are most prone to starvation during the early days before they have any reserves to draw on. In the later stages the chicks are more likely to be taken by poachers as they are less work for the poachers to look after and more likely to survive poaching. Those poor individuals in captivity, however, cannot help to increase our numbers after a bad year.
Yours,
Olivia Parrot