The metropolitan area of Caracas, with 1.5 million vehicles and four million people who generate five million kilograms of waste per day, continues to serve as habitat for 320 species of birds, a quarter of the national total. “The exuberant mountainous system of Ávila (which separates the capital from the Caribbean Sea) is key to maintaining this natural wealth. As are the parks and green corridors between them, and smaller parks, the Botanical Garden, the banks of the Guaire River, the university campuses and golf clubs,” Marietta Hernández, president of the Audubon conservationist society, told Tierramérica.

Most are smaller birds, but there are also herons, macaws, parrots and the chachalaca (Ortalis ruficauda), native to northern Venezuela as well as Colombia, and Trinidad and Tobago.