Arthur gently lifted the thick red feathers, his hands trembling as he revealed the hidden object. It was a thin, lightweight aluminum identification band wrapped securely around the parrot's leg, completely custom-made. On its surface, barely visible beneath a layer of dust, was a faint line of engraved text and a long sequence of numbers, alongside a tiny engraved silhouette of a sailboat.
Heart pounding, Arthur grabbed his reading glasses from the table and brought his face closer, reading the tiny inscription aloud. "Mateo..." followed by a local Costa Rican phone number. Arthur breathed, looking up into the bird's calm eyes. "So, shall we call this Mateo?" Arthur could’ve sworn the bird’s eye lit up at the name.
Without hesitating, Arthur picked up his cell phone with shaking fingers and dialed the digits stamped into the metal. The line rang once, twice, three times, each tone stretching the silence in the room until a woman's breathless, hesitant voice finally answered on the other end. "Hola?" she asked.