Didi!

Didi, my Dodo inspired character:

Pigeons: the pink and the feral

The Pink Pigeon is another endemic bird of Mauritius. If you asked anyone who have been schooled in Mauritius to name endemic species of Mauritius, they would probably be able to enumerate The Mauritius Kestrel, the Mauritius Parakeet (cateau vert) and the Pink Pigeon. 

Fofo the Fody

The Fody is better known as the "cardinal" or "oiseau banane" in Mauritius. I often see cardinals in the garden back home. When I found that the Mauritius Fody is an endemic species that's considered to be endangered, I thought, mmh there seem to be quite a lot of them for an endangered species. 

I started modelling Fofo, without doing more research, and it was only after looking carefully at the book Birds of the Mascarene by Ramen Narainsamy that I realised that the cardinals I saw in the garden were the common Red Fody of Madagascar. The endangered Mauritius Fody is different from the common Fody in that the males are olive brown with a red head, whereas the common Fody are red almost all over. 

Fofo before: red all over

Fofo fixed: swapped the texture

Kes - animation test

Kes the Kestrel

Kato - animation test

Kato the Mauritius Parakeet!

Modern day houses

Visual reference: