Day 10 – Rainsong Wildlife Sanctuary

The Rainsong Wildlife Sanctuary is a non-profit wildlife refuge about 2km from the house. It is run by a lady name Mary and manned by a host of volunteers from around the globe.  As we entered into the front entrance of Rainsong, I called out “Hola” (Hello). I was quickly greeted by Gary, a middle aged man volunteering now for about 8 months. He is over from the UK for his second tour of volunteering here at the sanctuary.

After being greeted by Gary he asked if any of us had on insect repellent. All of us did except for Thomas. Little man must have known something we didn’t know this morning. Since, we had on the repellent we could not touch any of the animals.. Most all of the animals touch and lick just about everything, so through touching our chemicals would make the animals sick.

You would have thought that Thomas won the Lottery! He is doing something that sister can’t do today. “Ohhh.. Yeah!”, he says. First up, we meet Tarzan the capuchin monkey. Feisty little monkey that lost its arm when it was just a juvenile after a dominant male monkey tried to kill it and all the other offspring in the troop. When a new male takes over a pack it kills all the new offsprings and reproduces with all the females. Tarzan was fortunate to get away. And yes…..only Thomas got to “Touch the Monkey”.

Next Thomas got into a cage with a Keel-Billed Toucan, also known as a Rainbow-Billed Toucan. This guy was more colorful than Toucan-Sam! The bill of this bird was like a palette of pastels you would only find at Easter. Simply striking. Thomas proceeded to pet this bird as you would do a cat. It purred and gurgled as he stroked its head.

The “Crème de la Resistance” of the visit was definitely meeting Flower, the Pizote. When Flower was three weeks old she was attacked by a hawk. The claws literally ripped off a lot of its scalp and messed up its ears a bit. It has been at the sanctuary now for about two months and is doing fine. The volunteers did a great job in nursing it back to health. We were fortunate to be able to spend 15 minutes playing with the little girl. Flower took a fondness to Thomas and used him like a jungle gym. We were sad to leave her.

Gary introduced us to a couple more animals before we headed out for lunch. Again!!