Dec. 19, 2006 — Seven-year-old Seidon Nemeth stood covered with color and feathers Tuesday morning, delighted as five lorikeets landed on his head and shoulders.
The excitement took place in Coral World's new aviary, the Lorikeet Garden, devoted exclusively to the exotic but friendly birds.
Nemeth is no stranger to Coral World, according to his mother, Donna Nemeth: "I was curator here when I was pregnant with Seidon. He was here every day before he was born, and afterwards Trudie (Prior) let me bring him to work in a baby carrier strapped to my back."
The Nemeths were among several guests invited to meet the unusual birds a day before the official opening of Coral World's newest addition. The birds, slightly larger than pigeons, are tame, gentle and brilliantly colored in greens and blues highlighted with yellows and a red ruff. They create a virtual spinning kaleidoscope of color in the enclosure.
They have no fear of people, as evidenced by their immediate descent onto a group of tour operators, hoteliers and other tourism-industry guests who entered their enclosure. Their attitude was, "Oh, look at all these new playthings." Neil Prior, husband of park president and general manager Trudie Prior, was the first person the birds discovered. Prior looked like a park statue as they sat on his head and shoulders, with two hopping on top of his glasses.
Before the morning's hands-on encounter, a little of the bird's history was offered by Peter Noah, Coral World's vice president of operations, and Trudie Prior. The 1600-square-foot walk-through aviary is the biggest exhibit the park has added since it reopened in 1998.
"In the past year," Prior said, "we have been focusing on making the park more interactive. We've seen that our guests want to be more than spectators. They want to interact with the animals."
The park launched Shark Encounter earlier this year with an eye toward putting guests in closer contact with marine life, "but not everyone wants to get that close to sharks," Prior said.
"When children get close to animals, they develop feelings for them and want to protect them," Prior said. "We want people to love the animals."
The birds are indigenous to Indonesia, the South Pacific and Australia, Noah said, although the current crop was raised domestically in the states. The birds will capture your heart, he said.
"If you look at one of the lorikeets in the eye, it gets you in the heart," Noah said, "And if it's in your heart, the brain will follow."
The birds proved Noah's point. They flirted with the guests, curiously inspecting them. They darted from one guest to the next to sip little cups of nectar the park passed out. When the exhibit officially opens on Wednesday, the park will offer the nectar for $2 a cup.
Lorikeets are nectar-eating birds, Noah said. They will crush a flower with their bottle-brush tongues to extract the nectar and pollen. "If they were fed seeds they would starve to death," he said. "Their beaks are not equipped to crack seeds or nuts." And they are hungry critters. They spend 70 percent of their day eating, Noah said.
Mario Francis, president of the Audubon Club of St. Thomas, gazed at the birds as if spellbound. Francis is intimately acquainted with the bird life of the territory: "I've seen our local parrots, but I have never seen anything like these. They're so colorful."
At the aviary's gate, Tourism Commissioner Pamela Richards performed the ribbon-cutting duties, lauding Coral World for its contribution to tourism.
"Tourists today want experiential tourism," she said. "They want new experiences, not just sand and sea." Coral World is a "top destination" in the territory, Richards said: "The healing part of this, getting to know the birds, is a little like a petting zoo."
Admission to the Lorikeet Garden is included in the price of a general-admission ticket to Coral World, Prior said. For more information, click here.
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