Wednesday, May 19, 2004
Squawk
The story goes that some years ago some people on my street had an unknown number of pet parrots. For reasons unknown, the owners released the birds into the wild.
I guess the birds decided they liked the San Diego climate, or the food supply, or surfing, or blondes in bikinis - not that I could blame them on any or all counts - so they stuck around. In time, they reproduced, and now on my block you can usually spot a green parrot or two, (I've never seen more than four together at one time).
Not having ever owned a parrot, I've learned something I had not known about the flying green bastards recently: they are far louder than your average, ordinary neighborhood bird. Your finches, sparrows, starlings, chickadees - they got nothing volume-wise on a pair of bickering parrots.
And lucky me, the parrots like to squawk at each other as they stand on the powerlines right outside my window, invariably quite early in the morning after I work until 3am. Awesome!
SQUAWK!
I guess the birds decided they liked the San Diego climate, or the food supply, or surfing, or blondes in bikinis - not that I could blame them on any or all counts - so they stuck around. In time, they reproduced, and now on my block you can usually spot a green parrot or two, (I've never seen more than four together at one time).
Not having ever owned a parrot, I've learned something I had not known about the flying green bastards recently: they are far louder than your average, ordinary neighborhood bird. Your finches, sparrows, starlings, chickadees - they got nothing volume-wise on a pair of bickering parrots.
And lucky me, the parrots like to squawk at each other as they stand on the powerlines right outside my window, invariably quite early in the morning after I work until 3am. Awesome!
SQUAWK!
