Two Trees, Two Boxes, No Tenants

Michel Salas walked a stretch of tropical vegetation at Fundación Loros yesterday with his eyes fixed on the trees, not the ground. The first he came across was a mamón — Melicoccus bijugatus — tall and full-canopied, its trunk wrapped in a white band to keep climbers at bay. The nest box was already in place among its branches, though the tree arrived to the encounter fruitless: its season hasn't come yet. A few meters on, another tree waited with greater generosity. The mamey — Manilkara zapota, of the family Sapotaceae — wore its ripe fruits proudly, their rough, reddish-brown skin hanging heavy within the dense foliage. Metal sheets sheathed the trunk like armor against any creature with thoughts of climbing. It too had its nest box, also installed beforehand, also empty. Two stations prepared, two doors left open. No one was home that Sunday, but the boxes remain there still, peering out from between the branches beneath a cloudy March sky, waiting for the tenant who has yet to arrive.