B07 Came to Fill the Void

Omar Enrique Berdugo Cabeza was cleaning aviary 1 when he looked up and spotted a beak pressing against the mesh from outside. There on the ground, gleaming in solitude, lay the identification tag of B13. For weeks he had sensed something missing from the group, the parrot simply nowhere to be found, and that day he understood why. An unidentified predator had taken its life, leaving behind nothing but that small metal tag and the marks of its own pecking. He carried the weight of the discovery alone for a moment before sharing the news. B13 had been B12's companion, and its absence left the aviary holding a different kind of silence. B11 and B12 remained together, but incomplete. Weeks later, B07 arrived — and without anyone arranging it, the three began moving through the world as a pair of three. On the day of the photographic survey, B07 was perched at the entrance of a nest box mounted in a tree dressed in pink blossoms, still and upright as a sentinel. Inside, B11 and B12 rested. What Omar described so simply says everything: B07 came to fill that void.