Bahamas Art | ROLLING HARBOUR ABACO

‘PARROTS OF THE BAHAMAS’

A SERIES OF ABACO PARROT PAINTINGS BY ANTONIUS ROBERTS

The wonderful parrots of Abaco are often featured hereabouts, and with good reason. They are the only subspecies of cuban parrot to nest underground, a unique species adaptation that protects them from fires in the pine forest of the ABACO NATIONAL PARK where they breed. However this in turn makes them vulnerable to predation. An intensive long-term conservation and predation-reduction program headed by scientist Caroline Stahala has reversed the decline of this iconic bird. Numbers have increased from fewer than 2500 some years ago to an estimated 4000.

There are places on Abaco – south Abaco in particular – where the parrots congregate in noisy groups during the day. Many people manage to take photographs of them. Good photographers with a decent lens can get outstanding results. Even the camera-incompetent (I hear my name!) can manage the occasional first-class photo, given time and plenty of spare space on the camera card… But very few can do justice to these colourful birds in paint.

The spectacular series of paintings below are by well-known Bahamian artist and sculptor Antonius Roberts. Caroline has already posted about these on the ABACO PARROT RESEARCH F/B page. The originals of these paintings have (unsurprisingly) been sold, but they are available as limited-edition prints. Antonius will generously be donating proceeds of sale from the series to support the on-going parrot research. The images are ©Antonius Roberts – thanks to him and to Caroline for use permission

A recent reception was held in Nassau to showcase this series of paintings. You will find more about them by clicking the link to open a pdf of the reception brochure ABACO PARROT PAINTINGS Caroline Stahala contributed an excellent one-page article about the Abaco Parrots and their conservation – click on it to enlarge to legible size