An Afternoon In The Park

Toward the end of 2007 we first came into contact with Tim and Joyce Keliher. I think it was back when I preached at an English service here in Teresina. They are missionaries who help facilitate on-campus Christian groups. They don't lead the groups, they are there for support of the student-leaders of the groups.

It was a great afternoon, and the park is a pretty interesting place even if it is filled with ravenous mosquitoes. There were two things that stuck out among the mountain of photos we took that afternoon. (And we would have taken more, but the camera's battery died.)

The Iridescent Lizard

As we were hiking around the part of the park that leads down to the river a lizard that had been sunning itself scampered across the path. It was so cool looking that we had to find it to get some pictures. Fortunately it was not far off the path (we did not have to even leave the path), and we got some pictures.

It was about a half meter long, and my guess is that it was a chameleon of some sort. I have not seen anything like it before, so iridescent, so blue and green. So cool.

There are three more pictures of it in our photo album from the afternoon.

If you know more about this lizard than I do please comment!

The Birds

The tropical bird trade is huge business here, and a lot of it is not legal. As we were traipsing back toward the front of the park we passed a police station. Nádya asked if they still had a zoo exhibit a little further on. It turns out that there was not, but they did have some birds whose owners had been caught without bird-owning licenses, and would we like to see them?

The one above is a crested cardinal, and pretty rare from what they told us. The birds were there because it was the weekend, and IBAMA (the agency which evaluates and frees the birds who can be returned to the wild) is closed on the weekend. Again, there are more photos in our photo album from the afternoon.

One intriguing fact they told us was that the cages are crushed when the birds are handed over to IBAMA. I guess that is to discourage investment in such things. It really is not that uncommon to see someone riding down the street on a bicycle with a bird-cage. They are usually caught for their songs, which can be very beautiful.