Parrots of the mountains

by Ondine Evans

A slow slow creaking call, as ponderous as the upswept midnight wings, echoes across the mountain valleys,

And then alights in a pine, sending showers of pine cone fragments down as the hard beaks crack open the nutty prizes.

A tinkling call, almost inaudible, and a red/blue shape, camoflaged in plain view, moves behind the nectar laden bottlebrushes,

Or, more clumsily, alights on a tiny bush, overbearing its red flowers to the ground, correa bells full of honey.

A noisy, fleeting, swarming chatter fills the air, and darting rainbows whiz past my ears,

Flurrying in and out of trees, pausing noisily to feed with brushlike tongue on honeyed gum flowers high in the canopy.

A single note, an answering call, as the green-red and the red-green couple land always near each other,

Each a colourful rotund reverse of their partner, as they shadow each other through the trees.

A shrieking cacophony, a thumping on the edge of a gutter, claws scrabbling on metal and a yellow crest uprises

As a counterbalance to the heavy body's landing, and then the joyous destruction of the roof begins.

Written in response to Thursday 1st September exercise: bird calls