Rosella

While driving through a pine forest just south

of Rotorua I saw the bright colours of this parakeet

lying on the road.

Although it was It was directly in the path of tyres

even 16 wheeler trucks,

it was relatively unscathed apart from being dead.

The colour of its feathers was so vivid that

even after I had steered around it and driven on towards my destination I made a

u-turn. Two in fact.

These birds are Australian but they have colonised

parts of New Zealand

probably with human assistance.

My father, who until the last years of his life

kept birds, had a Rosella in a aviary. It think it was a he, they have brighter colours,

He endlessly paced back and forth on his perch,

and in a nervous equivalent of nailbiting

pulled his feathers out with his beak so that large patches

of him were bald.

Even as a small boy and not particularly schooled in empathy

for fellow citizens of this planet I always felt sorry

for the poor creature.

The body of this paticular Rosella is in a deep freeze.