Carolina Paroquet

 

 

Medium : Gouache and Cut Paper on Illustration Board

Circa : Ford Times, November 1957

Once abundant in the southeastern coastal states, the Carolina Paroquet occasionally flashed his tropical colors in the winter-worn North. He was fond of fruits and seeds, a safe diet until the white man planted orchards and grainfields. After that the Paroquet spent his days, which ended in 1904, as a highly visible target. Even when he escaped the farmer's bullets, he fell prey to the cage-bird dealer or the milliner, who catered to the Victorian passion for personal adornment.

-Charley Harper

Ford Times, America’s Vanishing Birds, November 1957; Birds and Words, 1974