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Hyacinth macaw
The Observer
|July 20, 2025
Face it, I'm gorgeous. I doubt if there's anything living more gorgeous than me: a full metre of glorious blue from beak to tail.
-
But that's not as great as it sounds. When humans see something as gorgeous as me, they want it for themselves. They catch us for pets, they kill us for feathers. I'd be better off ugly.
Monday
There's one creature more gorgeous than me in this fine bit of wooded savannah in the South American Pantanal. Reader, I married her. We macaws don't have mates, we have lifelong partners.
Tuesday
I'm unhappy when I can't see her.
And vice versa. So we fly in tandem and what a sight that must be for the envious creatures living monochrome lives on the ground.
We dine together and roost together.
This story is from the July 20, 2025 edition of The Observer.
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