Tuesday, October 23, 2012

Failed papaya crop


Almost everywhere you go in Panama you see papaya trees, laden with fruit growing, around the houses.  There are trees dripping with fruit in the parking lot at work.  We pass them walking the narrow trails to reach the beaches where we work.  We see them squeezed in between houses in the city.

I’ve been trying to grow some of my own.  And I’ve discovered that birds feed on them.  Not on the fruit but on the trees themselves.  It seems that for the second year in a row I won’t have much of a harvest, but I’ve seen some interesting birds and their behavior. 

Few birds commonly consume leaves.  But these grey-headed chachalacas are generally herbivorous and seem to enjoy papaya leaves.


Another day I got a clear view of why there are so many flowers but so few fruit. This collared aracari is tossing back the flowers (literally)





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