In celebration of Municipal Macaw Day in Campo Grande – MS, we held the “Macaws in Verse and Color” contest. The competition was divided into two categories: drawing, aimed at children aged 6 to 8, and poetry, aimed at children aged 9 to 12. In the first, participants were invited to create works that symbolized the blue-and-yellow macaws of Campo Grande – MS. In the second, the contestants had the task of composing verses about these beautiful birds.
Three finalists were selected in each category and, as a prize, the winners were given the opportunity to spend a day as “child researchers” with the team from the Urban Birds Project – Macaws in the City, which conducts research and monitoring of blue-and-yellow macaws in Campo Grande – MS, on October 12, 2024.
The winners of the drawing category were: Maria Fernanda Pierini de Godoy, Sophia Bitencourt Camy, João Lucas de Oliveira Souza. And the winners of the poetry category were: Evelyn Segismundo Pessoa, Beatriz Borges Lima, Tiago Pedroso Macarini. Only four of the six winners took part in the competition’s awards ceremony in person, as two of them were from outside the state and were unable to take part in the face-to-face activities.
To kick off the activities with the winners, we held a talk at the Instituto Arara Azul’s Sustainability Center in Campo Grande – MS. During the presentation, the winners and their guardians had the opportunity to learn about macaws, the Hyacinth Macaw Institute’s initiatives and its conservation actions.
Figure 1: Educator giving a talk to the winners and their guardians at the Instituto Arara Azul Sustainability Center in Campo Grande, MS.
At the end of the lecture, we took the “child researchers” out into the field, where each winner developed a role and helped to monitor two nests.
Figure 2 and 3: Winners of the competition helping researchers monitor the nests of Blue-and-yellow Macaws in Campo Grande-MS.
Figure 4: Instituto Arara Azul team, winners and their guardians with the monitored hyacinth macaw chicks.
After the field activities, the team, the contest finalists and their guardians went to the “Bosque das Aves”. This forest, which is a square, was inaugurated in 2022 to commemorate the Municipal Day of the Macaws, with the planting of various fruit trees that make up the food chain of the Blue-and-yellow Macaws and other birds in the region. We took the opportunity to have a picnic here, enjoying the natural surroundings.
Figure 5: Researcher and contest winners during the picnic at the “Bosque das Aves”, in Campo Grande – MS.
As well as taking an active part in monitoring the nests with the Instituto Arara Azul team, each winner of the competition received a plush Blue-and-yellow Macaw as a prize and a digital certificate of participation in the competition.
Figure 6: Winners receiving a stuffed macaw at the Instituto Arara Azul Sustainability Center in Campo Grande-MS.
Figure 7: Model of the digital certificate sent to the winners of the “Araras in Verse and Color” competition.
Text by: Eliza Mense
Biologist, post-graduate in environmental education and business management, with 36 years’ experience in managing social and environmental projects. Since 2014, she has been a member of the Executive Board of the Hyacinth Macaw Institute, developing management and financial sustainability actions for the execution of research and conservation projects.
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