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Field Notes · Fundación Loros
Every walk through the reserve —by our keepers, by neighbouring farmers, by the community, and by those who visit us through regenerative tourism— leaves a record. We publish these observations in near real time: releases, rescues, trees in bloom, wildlife returning. It's the living monitoring of the territory, made by many eyes.
Wednesday, July 22· By Alejandro Rigatuso
After several weeks of drought, this week's rains were enough to bring Cerro El Peligro back to life. Gonzalo climbed today with his father up to 350 meters above sea level, and from up there the landscape was unrecogniz…
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Saturday, July 18· By Alejandro Rigatuso
Nicolás no esperaba encontrarse con esa figura quieta al pie de la ceiba. Estaba ahí nomás, en la finca de uno de los vecinos de la Fundación en el sector Broche — un coendu apoyado contra la corteza grisácea del árbol, …
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Wednesday, July 15· By Alejandro Rigatuso
Alguien de Villanueva decidió hacer lo correcto. Llegó con un armadillo vivo entre las manos — sano, entero, con su caparazón de bandas intacto — y lo entregó voluntariamente. No hubo trámite largo ni explicaciones difíc…
Read noteTuesday, July 7· By Alejandro Rigatuso
It was a simple gesture, but a precise one: Alberto stopped at a particular place in the territory, pulled out the device, and took the coordinates. The point was marked — 10.444723, -75.264038 — like a promise buried in…
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Sunday, June 14· By Alejandro Rigatuso
Alberto arrived at the Proyecto Ara sanctuary with the crates loaded: mangoes in every stage of ripeness — green, half-ripe, some already wearing that first blush of orange that only the June sun can give — and a generou…
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Sunday, June 14· By Alejandro Rigatuso
Deep in the green tangle of Los Loros forest, nearly invisible against the branches, loro number 15 has spent seven years learning that this is his place. His companion, number 14, arrived two years later and has now acc…
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Sunday, June 14· By Alejandro Rigatuso
On Father's Day, Cerro el Peligro woke wrapped in a thick fog that blurred the trees and softened the edges of the hillside. Alberto was already at his post. As on any other morning, he prepared three metal trays with fr…
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Tuesday, June 9· By Omar Enrique Verdugo Cabeza
Omar Enrique Verdugo Cabeza arrived at the little forest that morning with a few spare perches tucked under his arm and set them up without much ceremony among the trees. He didn't have to wait long: Loreta number 14 dis…
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Tuesday, June 9· By Omar Enrique Verdugo Cabeza
In the little patch of forest that clings to the edge of aviario 4, Omar Enrique Berdugo found something worth stopping for: a cluster of wild fungi in shades of orange-red, pushing up through the grain of an old plank p…
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Friday, June 5· By Omar Enrique Verdugo Cabeza
It was half past ten in the morning on May 28th when Omar Enrique Verdugo Cabeza was washing the feeding trays for the parrots, there at the Vista al Lago Uno kiosk, when something in the undergrowth caught his eye. At f…
Read noteFriday, June 5· By Omar Enrique Verdugo Cabeza
In May, Omar Enrique Verdugo Cabeza opened the doors of aviaries 1, 2, and 3, releasing into the air a group of parrots that had arrived at the foundation from the REO2 road. What happened next was not written in any man…
Read noteSunday, May 31· By Omar Enrique Verdugo Cabeza
This morning, as Omar Enrique Berdugo Cabeza made his way toward the Fundación Loros, the trail offered him one of those surprises the forest rarely gives: a white-tailed deer standing no more than five meters away, look…
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Monday, May 25· By Omar Enrique Verdugo Cabeza
Omar Enrique Berdugo Cabeza was on his way to the sector Los Guardianes when he nearly stepped on her. There, right in the middle of the trail, a juvenile green iguana rested on the dry earth as though the path belonged …
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Sunday, May 24· By Alejandro Rigatuso
Some visits you don't easily forget. Erica Montoya arrived at the grounds of Fundación Loros like any other visitor — camera ready, eyes wide open — and left carrying a treasure: images that wander through nearly every c…
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Saturday, May 23· By Alejandro Rigatuso
There are mornings at Los Loros that stay with you even though no one planned them. Corina was at the release point in the Ara area when she looked up and found something that stopped time: a scarlet macaw, a blue-and-ye…
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Friday, May 22· By Alejandro Rigatuso
They arrived that day as a group at the heart of the reserve: officials from the EPA Cartagena in green vests and field caps, uniformed officers from the Armada Nacional in their camouflage and rifles slung over their sh…
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Friday, May 22· By Alejandro Rigatuso
This morning, near the Arroyo de los Guardianes, six animals returned to the wild. The release was coordinated by Alberto alongside the EPA, the Policía, and the Armada Nacional — eight people in all, a mix of the Loros'…
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Thursday, May 21· By José Marin
Somewhere within the dense vegetation of the reserve, José Marín stopped before a tree that could not be overlooked: an indio encuero —Bursera simaruba— standing some twenty meters tall, its trunk splitting into several …
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Monday, May 18· By Alejandro Rigatuso
On Wednesday, the 13th of May, the EPA returned to the tropical dry forest what had always belonged to it: an adult male three-toed sloth, rescued and rehabilitated by that same agency, ready to resume his life among the…
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Friday, May 15· By José Marin
On May 15th, José Marín made his way down an earthen trail where branches and trees arch overhead to form a natural tunnel, the ground carpeted with dry leaves and small stones that crunch beneath every step. At the far …
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Friday, May 15· By José Marin
José Marín was walking alone through the scrubland when the dry leaf litter began to move. It wasn't the wind — it was baby iguanas, ten of them, darting through the undergrowth with that nervous velocity that young anim…
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Wednesday, May 13· By José Marin
From a high point in the reserve, José Marín stopped mid-stride and lifted his gaze. Among the dense vegetation blanketing the hillsides, nearly swallowed by the deep green of the slope, the tin rooftops of the release a…
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Friday, May 8· By Alejandro Rigatuso
A few weeks ago, Sombrerito — the Amazonian parrot tagged B12 — arrived at the Fundación Loros facilities with a wound that would change him forever: he had lost an eye, most likely in a fight. What followed were days of…
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Friday, May 8· By Alejandro Rigatuso
It was Maicol who found them that January, near the ridge of El Peligro, camera at the ready and eyes wide open. In the crown of a papayote in full bloom — that tree of yellow flowers that lights up the forest like a bur…
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Friday, May 8· By Alejandro Rigatuso
Alberto llegó temprano al santuario con las manos vacías y se fue con varias cajas llenas. Mayo es un mes generoso en Los Loros: los mangos ya estaban amarillo-anaranjados, pesados de madurez, y los mamoncillos colgaban …
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Thursday, May 7· By Omar Enrique Verdugo Cabeza
On the hill of Los Guardianes del Paraíso, Omar Enrique Berdugo Cabeza was walking through the rain when he came upon an orejero — Enterolobium cyclocarpum — that seemed to have dressed itself in celebration just to rece…
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Thursday, May 7· By Omar Enrique Verdugo Cabeza
She had been free on the hillside for weeks when the blue-and-yellow macaw wearing medallion number 1 made a decision no one had asked of her: to return. Not to captivity, but to the place her memory held most powerfully…
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Tuesday, May 5· By Alejandro Rigatuso
At 8:19 in the morning of May 5th, Omar opened the door to aviary #3, and B174 lingered for a moment on the threshold. He was a yellow-crowned amazon — Amazona ochrocephala — his green plumage set alight by the morning s…
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Sunday, May 3· By Alejandro Rigatuso
On Sunday, May 3rd, Alberto arrived at the release site with the day's food and found what the team had been hoping to confirm: the five newly released scarlet macaws (*Ara macao*) are still close by. Four of them had st…
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Friday, May 1· By Omar Enrique Verdugo Cabeza
On April 22nd at noon, Omar Enrique Berdugo Cabeza opened the hatch and the parrot B214 flew out toward the trees surrounding Fundación Loros. The bird had arrived with battered feathers, but during its rehabilitation it…
Read noteFriday, May 1· By Omar Enrique Verdugo Cabeza
That day, the sun showed no mercy. In aviaries 1 and 2, the birds knew it before anyone else: before the heat had even become unbearable, they were already seeking out water, shaking themselves in the drinking troughs, t…
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Friday, May 1· By Omar Enrique Verdugo Cabeza
That day at Fundación Loros, the work began early — and it began with the hands. Two volunteers pulled on their gloves and arranged aluminum trays with papaya, mango, starfruit, sunflower seeds, and peanuts — a careful p…
Read noteFriday, May 1· By Omar Enrique Verdugo Cabeza
There are months at Fundación Loros that are set apart by a particular kind of uproar: the mango months. Omar Enrique Berdugo was making his rounds through the aviaries, phone in hand, when he decided to capture what he …
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Thursday, April 30· By José Marin
That Thursday, in the sector known as El Tamarindo, a gray-furred sloth decided to cross the road at the least expected moment. Farmers Gustavo Orozco and Rafael Orozco spotted it before anyone else and didn't hesitate —…
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Wednesday, April 29· By Omar Enrique Verdugo Cabeza
Omar Enrique Berdugo Cabeza was walking alone through the Los Guardianes sector when the tree stopped him cold. It was tall, heavy with long pods that hung like green fingers, bearing seeds of a burning red he couldn't r…
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Wednesday, April 29· By Alejandro Rigatuso
Carlos saw them arrive together, as they always do: all seven. The group of tití monkeys appeared this morning among the branches of the rubber tree growing beside the casa Paraíso, moving with that restless agility so p…
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Tuesday, April 28· By José Marin
There are builders in the reserve who need no tools. José Marín knows them well. This morning, while making his rounds through the pie de monte sector, he stopped before a slender tree — and there it was: pressed against…
Read noteMonday, April 27· By Alejandro Rigatuso
There was a little of everything that day: the scaled green of nine iguanas, the restless yellow of eleven canaries released in individual cages and then as a group, the red and blue of five guacamayas who had been waiti…
Read noteMonday, April 27· By Alejandro Rigatuso
On the 27th of April, along that shaded corridor running between the casa Paraíso and the sector of los Guardianes, three tamandúas mexicanas touched the soil of Fundación Loros for the first time. They had been brought …
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Sunday, April 26· By Alejandro Rigatuso
Ranger Omar opened the door of aviary #3 — in that corner of the reserve everyone here calls the bosquesito — and waited. On the other side stood B68: a yellow-headed Amazon parrot, green band on his leg, feathers the ex…
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Sunday, April 26· By Omar Enrique Verdugo Cabeza
There are days when Fundación Loros seems to want to reveal everything all at once. On a recent walk through the sanctuary, the forest unfolded an abundance that was almost too much to believe: more than twenty-five spec…
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Sunday, April 26· By José Marin
José Marín was walking through the humid forest of Fundación Loros when something white amid the leaf litter caught his eye. On an old log, surrendered to decay and draped in moss and creeping vines, a family of mushroom…
Read noteSaturday, April 25· By Alejandro Rigatuso
Omar found him without much searching: there was B214, settled at the feeding station in the small woodland near Casa del Paraíso as though he had owned the place for years. The parrot — one of the individuals from the r…
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Friday, April 24· By Alejandro Rigatuso
Más de cuarenta estudiantes del Colegio Cojowa llegaron al santuario de la Fundación Loros un lunes de mayo, y no vinieron con las manos vacías. Traían carteles que ellos mismos habían dibujado y rotulado sobre cuatro es…
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Friday, April 24· By Alejandro Rigatuso
That Friday, Maicol headed out into the sanctuary with the Sony Alpha camera Alejandro had lent him, and what he found was a cast worthy of any stage. The military macaw (Ara militaris), banded B101, perched on a weather…
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Wednesday, April 22· By Alejandro Rigatuso
On April 23rd, with the morning still cool over the Decameron aviary, Omar opened the doors and four cotorra carasucia parrots stepped out into the open air. Until that moment, they had known the world only from within: …
Read noteWednesday, April 22· By Alejandro Rigatuso
Some scenes need very little explaining. Omar knew this when he raised the camera and simply pressed record: parrots among the mango-heavy branches, pecking at the ripe fruit with that precision of theirs, letting rinds …
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Wednesday, April 22· By Alejandro Rigatuso
From the foothills of Arenal to the summit of cerro El Peligro, José Marín — head of security for Fundación Loros — walked every stretch of the trail today and confirmed something worth putting on record: the entire rout…
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Wednesday, April 22· By Alejandro Rigatuso
This April 22nd, Alejandro walked the sanctuary's trails with his camera over one shoulder, and the day gave him everything. The most significant moment came at aviario #1: the Amazonian parrot B173 FL-VN was released. B…
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Wednesday, April 22· By José Marin
The dirt path of Sector El Peligro concealed, among its dense vegetation and midday shadows, a vertical surprise: seven columnar cacti rising above the shrubs like silent sentinels. José Marín moved among them one by one…
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Wednesday, April 22· By Alejandro Rigatuso
There is a green sign planted at the edge of the property, where the open ground meets the shadow of the forest. It says what cannot be done here: no hunting, no burning, no logging. It is managed by Fundación Loros and …
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Wednesday, April 22· By Alejandro Rigatuso
There are entrances to the reserve that appear on no map as marked trails — they are paths that time and the passage of people drew without permission. La manga del pueblo is one of those. José knows it well, and that is…
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Wednesday, April 22· By Alejandro Rigatuso
José Marín had been walking the hillside for a while when he found the spot. He wasn't looking for it — it came to him, the way good places tend to do. From that summit at coordinates 10.4281°N, 75.2449°W, the entire san…
Read noteTuesday, April 21· By Alejandro Rigatuso
Along the green corridor that bridges the farms El Paraíso and Los Guardianes, on April 22nd, EPA Cartagena opened the cages and released the held breath of 37 animals returning to the wild. Nine canaries shot toward the…
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Tuesday, April 21· By Alejandro Rigatuso
On Tuesday, April 21st, Omar arrived at the sanctuary with a day that few can match: three releases of loros reales in a single dawn. One by one, B180 from aviary one, B228 from aviary two, and B60 from aviary three spre…
Read noteTuesday, April 21· By Alejandro Rigatuso
Not long ago, José Marín had spotted just one among the trees of the piedmont sector — a single tití cabeciblanco, still, with no apparent company. It was the kind of sighting that leaves more questions than answers. But…
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Tuesday, April 21· By José Marin
José Marín headed out alone into the piedemonte sector, his signal barely strong enough to send a GPS location every now and then. Along the way, he came across two trees worth adding to the record: a camajorú standing t…
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Monday, April 20· By Alejandro Rigatuso
This morning, two baskets brimming with ripe mangoes set out from Vista Hermosa — yellow-orange, heavy with that sweet, dense fragrance that only freshly cut fruit carries under a tropical sun. Some bore the dark spots o…
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Sunday, April 19· By Omar Enrique Verdugo Cabeza
In the mid-afternoon hours, near aviaries #1 and #2 of the Fundación Loros, Omar Enrique Berdugo Cabeza watched the first one arrive: a green parrot that landed in a papaya tree and began pecking into the orange flesh of…
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Sunday, April 19· By Alejandro Rigatuso
Near the boundary of the Piedemonte farm, where the land of Fundación Loros takes its leave before yielding to another landscape, there stands a walnut tree that carries the story of a long journey. Its seeds arrived fro…
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