I'm Dominican, and cliche as it sounds, we have parrots native to the island, so i'll sometimes see flocks of green birds flying past my apartment building. We also have egrets, lots of them, probably because of the rice fields, and humming birds. I just love birds in general. And interestingly enough, one of my characters is Dominican.
Etan was practically a model himself - almost anyone would have assented on that point if driven into a corner, but there was something about the expression in his dark eyes and the tilt of his chin that made most folks want to deny it. He had a delicate cut to his features - the sort of beau ideal, cover-boy of all cover-boys beauty that had somehow come to be considered a universal standard. He bore a striking resemblance to the wax works by the door, but I barely noticed much of anything displayed in the gallery.