A pair of Yellow-crowned Amazons (Amazona ochrocephala) and a Mealy Amazon (Amazona farinosa) look like they're having a good time gathering at a 'parrot lick' along the Rio Napo in Ecuador. Uncropped f/6.3, iso 800, exp comp minus 2, 1/1000. While going over some old contributions I found these notes by Barry Kent MacKay when he shared one of his fabulous paintings to birdspix back in 9/04 Dear Pixers, This is a life-size oil painting of three species of parrot. It requires some explanation. It shows them at a "clay lick", which is a clay bluff, in the region of Amazonian Peru, where parrots and macaws flock to eat and swallow clay. Sometimes they mass in large numbers. No one is sure why they do it, but the theory is that the clay absorbs some toxic substances from some of the natural vegetation they will eat later in the day. The largest birds in the painting (top) are Mealy Parrots (Amazona farinose). They have a dull gloss to their plumage, in certain lights, that impart a "mealy" appearance, as if dusted with flour meal. Most artists seem to ignore it, but I tried to show the effect. Time of day is early morning, and I tried to show morning light. The middle-sized birds are Blue-headed Parrots (Pionus menstruus). They tend to be most numerous at the clay lick I am illustrating. The smallest birds are Orange-cheeked Parrots (Pionopsitta barrabandi). This painting will illustrate a scientific paper about the clay "lick" (the birds don't lick…they actually chew off and swallow chunks of clay, leaving a pattern of bite marks all over the face of the cliff) but you're getting a preview. Barry