Vogelfestival * Bird festival (or pro #7 of living on Statia)

Monday April 28 STENAPA (St. Eustatius National Parks Foundation) held its first Bird (Vogel) Festival.

After being tested what our knowledge of the local birds was -I admit, I am terrible in identifying birds- we made a guided walk through town to spot the local beauties.

Spotting and identifying the birds is hard enough as it is, taking sharp pictures of them is a nightmare. Most of my pictures looked like this:

Not a bird in sight!

We spotted our national bird, the Kili Kili…

the common dove…

the banana quit….

and many more, that of course wouldn’t sit quiet.

Back in the library, there was enough to do for young and old.

Making bird masks.

Making bird feeders out of empty plastic bottles.

In the end prizes (camera’s, binoculars and bird books) were given out to the kids that handed in the most beautiful picture or drawing of a bird. The jury, that consisted of two professional iguana-watchers that visited the island for the opening seminar of CNSI, had a hard time.

The winning photograph by Tom showed one of the few (pet) parrots the island has. Congratulations!