I love the colors of these wild parrots, the sliding scale of green, the edges of indigo and orange.

It's a loud bird, no murmur in that voice. Get four or five together or, as at the barn, a flock of 20, and it's the shriek of a circular saw gone wrong.

I rarely see a single bird -- they travel as a flock. When one flies, they all fly. There's the cackle of alarm, the dry rustle of wings, the sudden ascent. And then that scraped and rasping cry fades down the canyon, marks their passage.