When the Dark Men Come

He sits in the darkness of the hollow tree and waits. He knows it will only be a matter of time now. Soon the men will come. They will creep silently through the tall grass, climb the trees with their sharp-clawed feet, and steal the chicks from all the nests. He knows this because it won’t be the first time. It has happened so many times before. He learned not to fight because that could cause more harm or cause the man to accidentally drop… He shakes his head as he blocks the traumatic memory from his mind. It was the only reason he stopped fighting. Was he a terrible father for not fighting? He knew that some of the others fought still. The consequences were often devastating. He hated cowering in the back of the nest with his mate as the large dirty hands reached in to scoop up their chicks, feeling so powerless as he watched his chicks disappear into the black abyss. He tried to convince himself that if he let them go without a fight, ironically, they might actually have a better chance at survival. Or, at least he hoped so.

He and his mate supported each other, and together they found the strength to go on. He reminded himself every day how lucky he was to be able to spend a lifetime with her. When he first saw her, he immediately knew she was the one. She was so beautiful with her bright scarlet feathers and tail feathers that were such a lovely shade of blue! All Scarlet Macaws may have the same coloring, but they don’t all look the same, and her bright feathers were just…exquisite! He remembered how happy she had been the day she proudly presented the first two eggs to him. Her excitement was contagious, and it didn’t take long for their conversations to turn to future dreams and plans. He spent his days out looking for food while she was content to stay home incubating the eggs. When the day finally came, she was over the moon! Although they were scrawny little bald things now, he knew their feathers would soon grow, and they would be beautiful just like their mother.

Shortly after the chicks were born, he heard a commotion below. There were humans gathered on the forest floor beneath the trees. He didn’t see humans very often. Since humans held no interest for him as they were on the ground and he was in the sky, naturally, he ignored the people below, believing that their actions had nothing to do with him. How naïve he was! The family of macaws was relaxing when a human face appeared at the entrance of their nest. He squawked in surprise! The brown, wrinkled, sun-kissed skin and kind eyes full of wisdom met him, and at that moment, he was not afraid. He instinctively knew this man was not here to hurt them. Before he could wonder why he was there, the man quickly reached into the nest, gently scooping up the chicks. His mate reacted first as he was momentarily frozen in shock. Crying out loudly, she flapped her wings wildly and flew out of the nest after the man. The sound of her cry set him into motion, and he quickly followed her out of the nest. At first, he was confused. Where did the human go? He looked down. The human had already reached the ground. As he dove toward the ground, he wondered how the man had gotten down so fast?

There were more humans on the ground, and they surrounded the chicks, who laid on a white table surrounded by foreign objects. Though the parents wanted their chicks, they were also frightened. They perched on a nearby branch to watch the humans and their chicks. He assured her that he would stay close and continue to observe them until they were distracted. Then he would save his chicks. He watched as the humans carefully moved the chicks here and there, placing strange things on their chests and shouting out numbers. He heard the word “healthy” several times, and each time it was said, everyone would smile, so he assumed that it meant something good.

He soon realized that the humans were not trying to hurt his chicks. But why had they taken them from their nest? Though they were gentle and meant to cause no harm, didn’t they realize that they were still hurting the chicks by taking them away from their parents? Who would feed them, keep them warm, and teach them how to fly when the time came? They would die without him and his mate to care for them. His mournful cries startled the humans as he desperately wondered what to do. The man with the kind face said more words as he pointed into the trees. They began packing all the strange things away in bags and boxes. The man picked up the chicks and placed them gently into a pouch at his waist. He thought that the humans meant to leave and were taking the chicks with them. However, he was confused when the man quickly walked toward his tree and grabbed some sort of peculiar vine. The kind man attached himself to the colorful vine and began climbing higher and higher in the tree. His mate had already returned to the nest to grieve the loss of her chicks. Suddenly he was afraid that the man might take her too. His fear overwhelmed him.

He swooped in so close and fast that the man felt the wind from his long feathers brush his face. He swung back, dropping down a bit, but then began to ascend again. Before he could circle around, he realized that the man was reaching into his bag. When his hand emerged from the pack, he held the chicks carefully. He landed on a large branch nearby and watched as the man placed the chicks gently back into the nest. The man turned to him, gazing into his eyes as if to say, “I see you, I know you, I will not hurt you.” His mate, ecstatic to have her chicks returned to her, fussed about as he sat and pondered what had happened that day.

Not long after the kind man had gone, the sun had gone down, and they were settling down in the nest for the night. Suddenly, he heard some noises below. They weren’t loud, but they were not forest sounds. He peered out of the nest to the ground below. Two human-shaped dark shadows stood at the base of the tree. He wondered why the humans had returned in the dark and thought it strange as it would be too dark to see. Suddenly, he saw one of the men start to climb the tree. It looked like there was something wrong with his feet. They were like sharp claws digging into the wood of the tree as he climbed higher and higher. He knew something was wrong. Why wasn’t the man using his vine? What had happened to his feet? He backed into the nest, away from the opening, and it wasn’t long before a face appeared. This face was not kind. The eyes were hard, the mouth a thin-set line. He was afraid. The dirty hand that reached into the nest and grabbed his chicks was not gentle or kind. It was over in a moment, and the man was gone. She thought he would bring them back, like the last man, so she waited and waited. He knew they were gone forever.

It was an endless cycle of trauma and pain. Sometimes there were two eggs, and other times only one. Each time, the kind man would come in the light, and inevitably, the dark man would follow. He saw the kind man with the other humans in the forest and knew they were trying to protect the nests. But they couldn’t stay there forever, and as soon as they moved away, the dark men would come. At first, he and his mate had mourned loudly as they soared through the treetops of their small domain. They would fly to the edge of the small section of rainforest that was their home, where the clay beds lay, circle back, and fly over the trees again, all the while calling loudly for all to hear. During these travels, they found that others in neighboring trees were experiencing the same tragedies suffering just as they were.

In the beginning, he fought the dark men trying to save his chicks. It didn’t take long for him to realize that fighting the men increased the danger to the chicks and his mate. The young macaws were fragile, and he worried that they might be injured during the struggle. Sometimes his mate had been wounded in the skirmishes as well. The night that he lost hope and ceased to fight was like all the others, except for the terrible event he would carry with him forever. The dark man came, and he had fought so hard trying to save his chick that he didn’t even realize that they were outside of the nest. The dark man lost his grip, and the chick fell to the ground. He watched frozen, unable to save it. He had not fought the dark men since then, and he did his best to block the memory of that night from his mind, yet it still haunted his dreams.

He heard the humans call the dark men poachers. They said that the poachers stole the scarlet macaw chicks to take them far away and sell them for “a lot of money.” He didn’t fully understand, but what he did know was that there was a chance that the chicks would live, even if it wasn’t here with their family. The thought that they might be happy in their new home brought him some solace. After that night, when the dark men came, he and his mate stayed in the back corner of the nest. They huddled together and cried as their chicks were whisked away out into the black night.

The animals of the rainforest had come to think of the kind people as the “Protectors.” They did their best to protect the nests from poachers but, unfortunately, were not always successful. Sometimes their efforts paid off, and those chicks stayed with their parents. Though he was happy for them, he was also sad when he saw the families soaring above the treetops together. He would give anything to be like them, to erase the sadness from his mate’s eyes, to be a family. He would perch on a high branch and watch them fly, dreaming of the day that they would have the family they wanted so much. One day, as he watched and dreamed, a crazy idea occurred to him. He decided to give it a try. Besides, at this point, what else did he really have to lose?

He noticed that each time the poachers came, the sharp claws they wore on their feet left deep gouges in the tree’s wood. There were soft areas in the large tree’s trunk caused by the beetles drawn to the trees because the holes left by the poachers made it easier for them to bore through the wood. He chose a more prominent area near his nest but far enough below and to the right that it was not visible from the nest itself. The wood here was so soft it was almost disintegrating. Using his sharp beak, he began to form a hollow area just big enough for a baby chick. As he worked tirelessly on the miniature nest, it occurred to him that his tree was dying. The extensive damage showed the years of abuse the tree had suffered at the hands of the poachers and beetles had taken their toll. Though the tree still stood tall and proud as it had for many, many years, he knew that it was only a matter of time before the tree would fall, and they would need to find a new home. As he searched for food during his daily flights, he also searched for a suitable new home. His mate, who could not leave the nest because she was incubating the single egg she had laid, wondered what he was up to, but he wouldn’t tell her.

His mate became sadder and more withdrawn as it got closer to the day the egg would hatch. He saw the grief in her eyes. Every egg she had laid, every chick that had hatched that she had fed and cared for had been taken away. He couldn’t bear to see it happen again. The day came when the chick emerged from the egg, such a small, frail thing, he thought. His protective instincts telling him that he would not allow this chick to be stolen away from them. As usual, the kind people came and assessed the chick. He heard the word healthy, saw the smiles, and knew everything was good. They camped for several days below the tree before moving away to another area. The day he saw them packing up, he knew it was time to set his plan in motion.

He showed his mate the hollowed-out area and explained his plan. She was willing to go along with the plan and excited about the possibility of being able to raise her chick. The intense fear and worries were overwhelming. What if they come back after they discover the empty nest? What if the chick falls out of the miniature nest? What if he is cold or hungry? The questions never stopped, even as he moved the chick to the hollow and covered him in the soft sawdust from the tree. It looked like nothing more than a soft spot in the tree. He was confident that his plan would work.

That night, the dark men came. The angry face of the poacher, when he found the nest empty aside from the two adult macaws, was frightening. The man shouted and pounded his fist into the side of the tree. It seemed that he believed that another poacher had infringed on his area and taken the chick. More shouts from the ground and a loud commotion with a sudden bright light announced the arrival of the Protectors. The poachers on the ground scattered and ran away. The man in the tree attempted to climb down quickly, but the tree was weak, and he was not careful. At first, there were only small creaking noises. Then they got a little louder, until suddenly…CRACK! The tree began to fall! The man jumped to the ground and fled quickly. He and his mate swiftly left the nest as the tree fell, but there was no time to get to the chick!

Everything happened so quickly. The humans ran away, the tree fell, he and his mate spread their great wings and flew up into the black sky. Panicked, he turned and dove down toward the felled tree. The tree had cracked several feet below the hollow where the chick lay, and the top had simply fallen over. Due to the odd positioning of the tree, the chick was safe and unharmed in the miniature nest that was now upside down. While celebrating their incredible luck, his mate suddenly realized that they were now homeless, and her eyes were sad once more. He was so excited to finally show her the magnificent surprise he had been working on while she had been incubating the egg!

The tree stood tall, straight, and strong. There were no poacher marks on the trunk, and it probably wouldn’t have any for a long time. He had picked this particular spot because the dense overgrown brush surrounding the entire area would make it impossible for humans to visit their home. The foliage was very thick in this area of the rainforest, and although he would miss the regular visits from the Protectors, he knew that they would also be safe from the poachers…At least for a while. Eventually, he knew that they would find their way here. The rainforest seemed to get smaller every day, providing less and less protection from the outside world. But at least for a while, he would live in peace with his mate and chick. Better yet, very soon, he would teach the chick to fly, and they would soar through the treetops as a family, just like he dreamed they would.