Jane Johnson serves cookies to human guests, much to the interest of her flock of freeflight cockatoos.

IT WAS RAINING cockatoos.

Cubby the red-vent cockatoo came in for a landing first. Then Tilly, Kula and Rebby, three more red-vents. Then Tyke and Asta, two bare-eyed cockatoos, and finally Buster, a Goffin's.

One by one the white birds fell out of the sky onto our heads and shoulders, eager to make our acquaintance.

"Welcome to Cockatoo Downs," said Jane Johnson, crossing the yard to greet us. She was covered with birds, too.

"Feel free to practice the Cockatoo Downs eject," she said. She bent at the waist and threw her arms out, effectively dislodging the small flock clinging to her. Some of the birds fluttered to the ground, unruffled. Others flew to nearby trees.

So this was what it was like to live with a bird that flies free - 20 of them, actually.

Flying country
Johnson shares a total of 48 cockatoos and 10 acres of property near Grass Valley, Calif., with friend and fellow parrot owner Chris Shanks. Theirs is beautiful country, of rolling green hills, blue skies and winding gravel roads between sprawling homesteads. It's a fine place for any bird to fly free. Even a parrot from Australia.

Johnson and Shanks' cockatoos range widely in species and size from the small Goffin's and red-vents to the majestic pink-tinged Moluccan. Many are homeless pets the two women have adopted over the years.

About half are fully flighted. On nice days the birds wheel about the countryside, dropping in on visitors and neighbors alike. The rest are still getting the hang of free flight, said Johnson. A few prefer to walk.

"That's Razzle Dazzle," she said, identifying the snowy white umbrella cockatoo that had strolled up to Paul. "He was a pet and never flew. He's fully feathered, but he walks everywhere."

Sadie the citron cockatoo worships Popcorn, a standoffish triton. The two have become a freeflying couple at Cockatoo Downs.

Cockatoos everywhere
In fact, the small cockatoos seemed to prefer the ground, milling about like pigeons.

We soon found out why. They might be accomplished flyers, but these birds also had a serious foot fetish.

They chewed our shoelaces and nibbled the soles. When we tried to walk, the birds hung on like playful puppies, unwilling to let go.

"Get out of here," Johnson said irritably to one of the foot riders, gently launching him. Unperturbed, the ejected cockatoo gracefully glided to the ground.

Soon we were gently shaking the pesky cockatoos off us, too. It felt strange at first, interacting with birds fully equipped for flight. Each time one fell away, we instinctively reached out to grab it before it could hit the ground. But that wasn't necessary, of course. These birds were completely comfortable in the air.

Mainly, we had to get used to birds dropping out of the sky with no warning. Plop! Another cockatoo would crash-land on a shoulder and begin pulling at our clothes, looking for some fun. We noticed that Cubby had a black mark on his head.

"That's a marks-a-lot," Johnson explained over the cacophony of swooping, diving and screaming cockatoos. "It's so we can keep Cubby away from guests if we need to."

Jane related the story of one visitor's eyeglasses winding up high in a tree. So charming little Cubby was a thief! I pulled off my earrings and stashed them in a pocket out of sight. At lunch, I made up for it by letting Cubby steal a cube of ice out of my glass of lemonade.

From the mountain to the valley
Shanks began free flying parrots over 20 years ago, when she lived in California's wine country.

"I started flying Popcorn, my first cockatoo, on a mountain top in Saratoga. Certainly not the best place to do it," she said. "I was naive and didn't realize all that could have happened - such as him flying off down the mountain never to be seen again. I didn't train him to recall. He just naturally came to me when he flew. I was lucky. Ignorance was bliss. Now I would not atttempt such a thing."

When she moved, Shanks named her new home Cockatoo Downs because "I had in mind a lovely farm-type place full of cockatoos. The 'Downs' also represents the down on the cockatoos. Sort of a double meaning."

Every other year, Shanks holds an open house, the Cockatoo Downs Walkabout, so fellow bird lovers and cockatoo enthusiasts can meet her friendly flock. She invites speakers and raises money for worthy avian-related causes.

Shoelaces and soles are tasty enticements to the freeflying parrots of Cockatoo Downs.

However, for the last six months, Shanks has been living in Maui, Hawaii, where she may eventually move to help with a bird sanctuary.

Hanging with vultures
Johnson, a retired potter and ex-Silicon Valley high-tech worker who lives in a small trailer on the property, has been holding down the fort in Shanks' absence.

She lets the birds out of their pens, about a dozen large flights scattered over the hilly property, in the morning. They come and go as they please all day. Then around 3 or 4 p.m. Johnson gathers them back in by rattling food in a bowl and calling them by name.

Most of the birds stick close to home, flying between the tall Ponderosa pines and oaks on Shanks' property. But some, especially the bare-eyed cockatoos, occasionally take to the skies. In fact, said Johnson, they enjoy flying with the local vultures, riding the same thermals hundreds of feet in the air.

"They play follow the leader and bump each other out of the lead position in mid-air," she said, showing us a picture of the cockatoos flying high overhead, white dots in the sky.

Despite living near the Sierra snow line, the birds remain outdoors year-round in their unheated, partially covered pens. Johnson feeds them raw vegetables and pellets. For the most part, Johnson does not perform any grooming; the outdoor life keeps the birds' beaks and nails at manageable lengths.

When hawks come calling
Predators are not a big problem at Cockatoo Downs. The four-legged kind get the boot from Moose, a shaggy black bear of a Newfoundland who ambles about the property, often faintly scented from his latest encounter with a "black-and-white kitty," as Johnson likes to call skunks.

Red-shouldered hawks frequently visit the area but don't bother the birds much, said Johnson. But occasionally a red-tail or Cooper's raises the alarm.

In the 17 years Shanks has been free flying birds at Cockatoo Downs, she has lost only two. One was a sulphur-crested cockatoo that refused to come inside the pen one night and was picked off by an owl early the next morning.

The other was Shanks' beloved yellow-collar mini-macaw, Leroy. Leroy survived her first two hawk attacks, one of which Shanks witnessed.

"She saw the hawk coming and screamed bloody murder but could not escape the talons. Bamm! Right out of the tree she was taken. Off he took with Leroy; makes my stomach turn to think of it again."

Heartbroken, Shanks figured Leroy was gone for good. Amazingly, five minutes later, she heard a faint macaw call getting closer and closer. It was the wounded Leroy, who had somehow freed herself from the hawk and managed to make it back home.

But Leroy's luck finally ran out. Shanks figures that a small hawk sitting in a tree above Leroy's pen pounced on her when she landed on the ground.

The loss was hard for Shanks. "I scoured the hills for her the rest of the day and the next. Nothing. It was a sad situation," she said. "I loved her tremendously. She seemed invincible but fate caught up with her. She was a great watchbird alerting the others to danger. Ironic that she was the one who was finally taken."

However, Shanks still believes in the free lifestyle for birds. "As you can see, it didn't stop me from free flying my birds," she said.

"I do try to keep safety in mind. I don't fly before or after storms as hawks tend to hunt more then. I don't fly early in the morning or late in afternoon for the same reason. All my flyers are well-seasoned, trained and have been conditioned to the outdoors and the dangers it holds.

"I do not recommend that just anyone free fly their parrot. It takes months and months of training and physical conditioning. Not everyone or every parrot is suited to the rigors involved."

Outdoor shenanigans
The birds of Cockatoo Downs don't talk much beyond hello and goodbye. Some have struck up inter-species friendships. Sadie, a lovesick female citron cockatoo, follows Popcorn everywhere for a chance to preen him. Popcorn is a typical male triton cockatoo, said Johnson, chuckling. He's willing to receive affection but not return it.

There have been some other shenanigans. Whistles and Luke, both Moluccans, have to be padlocked in at night so they won't escape and release the other birds from their pens.

The cockatoos also like to eat houses - and anything else they can lay a beak on. Shanks has had to nail two-by-fours to the eaves of her home so the birds won't nibble them. Johnson occasionally has to retrieve a bird from a neighbor's property when it becomes a nuisance.

Tango the Moluccan enjoys crawling under parked cars and eating wiring. He also turned many a garden hose into a soaker hose, said Johnson.

Flying has not proved enough entertainment to deter the featherpickers at Cockatoo Downs. Several have the unmistakable moth-eaten look of pluckers. The worst is the bare-chested Tango, the only cockatoo with a heater in his pen.

Flying in public
Flying birds sometimes make for challenging mascots. The half dozen or so cockatoos she takes to schools and nursing homes usually sit obediently on their perching stick, said Johnson.

But one day, Bianca the umbrella cockatoo soared over the heads of an elderly audience and down a long corridor to sit in a patch of sunshine.

As Johnson walked by one room's open door to retrieve Bianca, she heard a woman call, "Something white just flew by."

Johnson collected Bianca and took her in to meet the alarmed resident.

"I told her, 'This is what you saw flying by, a cockatoo.' The woman said, 'Oh, good. I wasn't hallucinating!'"