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Juan Vasquez is an amazing man, with a story of
triumph over tragedy and a love for birds and life.
You'll find Vasquez just about every night in Coconut
Grove's CocoWalk mall, his four birds Cockatoos Mango and Coconuts,
and Macaws Peaches and Cherry performing mind-boggling tricks for
tourists and passersby, who pay Vasquez to take their picture while
posing with the birds.
Juan Vazquez shows off his amazing birds for CocoWalk visitors
"High five the man!" says Vasquez, and
Peaches a white Cockatoo lifts a wide open claw to accept the
traditional sports celebration of joy from the man whose shoulder she
stands on.
Vasquez' birds -- with their sit-ups, roll-overs,
play-deads, loop-the-loops and various other tricks are quite
simply, incredible. With a simple one-word command, the birds respond
with unquestioning obedience and loyalty.
"The birds trust me," explains Vasquez, who
has become known as the Bird Man of CocoWalk. "I share my life
with my birds and by getting them to the point where they are so well
trained, I have to give them a lot of affection. They trust me very
much."
Love brought Vasquez, 37, to the United States from
Columbia in 1984. Tragedy set him on the path to a professional life
with his birds.
"I was working in a bank in Columbia," he
recalls. "I fell in love with an American woman and came here on
vacation to visit her. I think my destiny was to be here because just
before I was about to go back to Columbia, someone offered me a job
here."
So, he remained in the U.S., worked in restaurants,
for a rent-a-car company and then started a business in Bayside taking
pictures of people and putting the image on a key chain.
"It was always in my mind that I didn't want to
work in America for somebody else," he says. "I've been
working with my birds for nine years now. I started right after I had
the accident."
The accident he refers to so cavalierly cost him his
left leg. He went one night to a reunion of friends. As he stood
between two parked cars saying goodbye after the party, a woman
started one of the vehicles and inadvertently put it in gear without
having her foot on the brake. The car lurched forward and sandwiched
Vasquez' leg between the bumpers.
"Yes," he says, as if not wanting to recall
the event,
"it was a very hard time. But, I am a positive person and I believe in
God. God takes care of us all."
After months of hospitalization and rehabilitation, Vasquez began looking
around for something he could do to earn money. He says he had never before
worked with animals or birds.
"I never had even a parakeet in Columbia, nothing," he says.
"It's something I learned to do here and I am very good at it."
Very good, indeed. Vasquez' birds will roll over, play dead, hang from a
finger, spread their wings and imitate an eagle and do any number of tricks
and stunts. One of the birds will even raise a claw in a very real imitation
of a bird giving the 'bird.' Vasquez even tosses the birds high in the air,
where they hover momentarily, then flutter back to land on his shoulder.
"We love each other so much that they won't leave me," he says.
"To me, birds are like people. They all have different personalities. I
can't say which of them is smarter because they each do different things for
me. My birds have a special way of behaving and doing things that amaze
people when they come and see me at CocoWalk."
Vasquez, a South Miami resident, says life is good. He also points out that
the woman who originally attracted him to the United States is now his wife
and the mother of his two children.
"I have had some very difficult times," he says. "But I
believe in God and he has taken care of me. I believe that if you are a
positive person and mentally strong, you can do anything and overcome any
difficult situation."
For more information on the Bird Man of CocoWalk, please call 305-668-4218.
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