August 12, 2010 |
| Macaw Mountain Bird Park |
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Resident Tucan.
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Just outside Copan lies the Macaw Mountain Bird Park and Nature Reserve. The owners of this park are old friends of Larry’s from Roatan. Lloyd, and his wife Tanya, own the park and a great restaurant (Twisted Tanyas) in town. We spent a beautiful sunny morning exploring this exquisite park with its tropical foliage and quiet pathways. The setting is serene and lush. There are both enclosed areas for some birds as well as open areas for others. The park also serves as a rescue facility for distressed birds. These are typically those whose owners have neglected or otherwise failed to properly care for these beautiful animals. We capped off the morning at the onsite restaurant. Smoked salmon, four cheeses, French bread and crisp white wine. How sweet it is!
From: Audubon Magazine (May 2005)
Located in western Honduras, a five-minute drive from the town of Copán Ruinas, is the award-winning Macaw Mountain Bird Park & Nature Reserve. Set in one of the area’s last old-growth forests, the reserve is replete with mahogany, gumbo limbo, chico zapote, Spanish cedar and fig trees. Many of the birds here were rescued by American conservationist Mandy Wagner. She began rescuing parrots and toucans out of devotion to these intelligent, social creatures, which she housed at her home on the Honduran bay island of Roatán. By the 1990s, her collection had grown to include more than 15 bird species. Lloyd Davidson, a biologist and long-time Roatán resident, inherited the birds in 1994. By 2000, the
collection had grown to more than 100 birds comprising more than 20 species, and Davidson purchased a beautiful tract of land for them. After several years of detailed designing and building, he and his business partner, Pat Merritt, moved the birds by charter airplane in July 2003 and opened Macaw Mountain several months later. Many of the birds have been donated or rescued and they are housed, fed and cared for here. Seeing so many varieties of these tropical birds in one place is a rare and unforgettable experience.
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2010
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