Once upon a time there was a bright and beautiful parakeet that lived in the swamps and forests of the eastern US. Farmers and trappers killed them all by the 1920s. I learned this from Ron Rash’s haunting new novel, THE COVE.
THE COVE is a haunting tale of loneliness, superstition, bigotry, betrayal, and loving deception set in the Appalachian mountains of North Carolina during the First World War.
As for that bright green Carolina Parakeet, how I wish they were still as plentiful here as they were a century ago. The bright red flash of a cardinal or the flitting of bluebirds are a joy. But a parrot? Pure glory.