B87 Always Comes Home to Casa Paraíso

Omar saw her arrive this afternoon, calm as ever, settling quietly near Casa Paraíso. B87 — a chestnut-fronted macaw, Ara severus, her green tag clearly visible among her feathers — was returning from Reserva La Ciénaga, in Santa Rosa de Lima, where she makes a habit of visiting other macaws and parrots before making her way back to the Fundación's little patch of forest. That coming and going has become part of who she is. What brings her back, though, is a story weighted with loss. When B87 was first released from aviario 2, her mate was left inside. In his desperation to escape, he threw himself against the wire mesh — and didn't make it. B87 was widowed before she even knew it. For a time afterward, she kept company with B90, the two of them together in this same stretch of forest, until each found her own way: B90 headed toward the mountain, and B87 stayed behind. And here she remains. She travels, explores, visits — but she always comes back to the corner where she once lived with her mate and with B90. Today, at three in the afternoon, Omar watched her land and knew, without needing binoculars, that it was her.