Green Bird of Happiness

I was walking to the mailbox this morning (a longer walk than it used to be: the post office has removed our usual collection box due to budget cutbacks) when I heard a familiar-yet-unfamiliar chuckling, cackling sound. I thought back to my trip to Australia, years ago.

Those are parrots, I thought to myself.

I smiled, thinking of some homeowner with a cage full of the noisy birds in their backyard. Their neighbors must love them.

I walked on, and the sound grew louder. I realized that the sound was not coming from a house; it was coming from the trees. I stopped and looked up.

A cloud of grass-green birds wheeled above me, now disappearing into the foliage, now leaping skyward a dozen at a time to fly in great circles, the red patches under their wings flickering in and out of visibility as they furiously beat their wings. All the while, they called to each other: laughing, screeching, and clucking like a waterfall made of of live chickens. A lone crow sat hunched in a tree in the midst of the madness, looking disgruntled and grumbling to himself and to his noisy neighbors.

I smiled, and continued on my way.