Recent sightings in Arkansas of the Ivory-billed Woodpecker, a bird long thought extinct, have roused hopes among a few eternal optimists that the Carolina Parakeet might also resurface. When Europeans first settled North America, teeming flocks of Carolina Parakeets snaked through the sky and populated riverbottom forests. The bird was the continent’s only native parrot. Its range extended from Florida to Virginia, west to Texas and Colorado, and north to Wisconsin. The last captive Carolina Parakeet died in 1918, and the last sure sighting of the bird in the wild was in Florida in 1920. Within the span of a century, the great flocks dwindled, and the tiny parrot vanished. Now, it is almost forgotten.

Weatherford first saw a Carolina Parakeet specimen at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences and was captivated by the exotic bird. She has written twenty-one books, several of which lift events or individuals from obscurity. She lives in High Point, N.C., and teaches at Fayetteville State University.