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Outlook: Birdwatching with the men who kidnapped me

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Diego Calderón birding with Leo on 2018 Expedicion BIO in Anorí

13/07/2021 GMT

Birdwatching with the men who kidnapped me

BBC World Service - Outlook, Birdwatching with the men who kidnapped me

Diego Calderón was taken hostage in Colombia on a biology field trip

Diego Calderón was captured by guerrillas while on a biology field trip in Colombia. Now, he’s bonded with his former hostage-takers over nature.

In 2004, young biologist Diego Calderón was captured while on a field trip in the Colombian Andes. His captors were Farc guerrillas, who held him for three months, seeking a ransom payment. Life in the Farc camp was basic and tedious, but Diego kept himself busy by studying the wildlife in the unique cloud forest habitat where he was held. Years later, after his release, Diego found himself face to face with the guerrillas once again. But by now a peace deal had been signed, and efforts were being made to use nature and tourism to integrate ex-combatants back into society. Many of them had grown up in the forests and had unique knowledge of the region. Diego was one of the first in line to join his former captors who were now carrying birdwatching binoculars, not guns. 

When Jonathan Franklin was a pupil at the famous British boarding school, Eton, in the late 1950s, he adopted two little tawny owls called Dee and Dum. He explains how he tried to train them in his tiny room. He spoke to Outlook’s Jo Fidgen in 2017.

In southern Brazil there lives a parrot named after one of horror's scariest villains. Freddy Krueger, the green Amazonian parrot that is, has seen just as much drama as his namesake. Ilair Dettoni is a vet who acts as Freddy's carer, and has stuck by Freddy since an injury in a shootout almost killed the parrot and earned him his famous name. Ilair spoke to Emily Webb in 2019.

Image: Diego Calderón birding with Leo on the 2018 Expedicion BIO in Anorí
Credit: Federico Ríos Escobar @historiassencillas

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