Wild Parakeets
The milk was sour and I poured it into the sink. Although I don't like milk and cereal for breakfast, my husband does and I decided to combine my morning walk with a trip to the hillside market down the street. I began walking and fell into an argument with myself about whether I should replace my crappy shoes before or after I got blisters. As I tramped unenthusiastically along, I began to notice a growing chatter in the trees. I'm so used to the rasping calls of crows and mockingbirds, and the cheerful noise of wrens that I can go for minutes without really hearing them, but this was different. It was intense. The noise was like nothing I'd ever heard and yet it wasn't ominous or scary. I recognized the noise as belonging to birds, a lot of them.
The bird noise got louder and louder until I had to stop and look up and there in a huge cypress tree was a flock of vivid green parakeets. At first I thought they were parrots, but I've seen a flock of wild parrots and these guys were smaller and not as loud. The parakeets were also a lot more fun to watch. They swooped after each other, hung upside down from the branches and screeched at the top of their lungs. It made me smile and feel friendly enough to point out these antics to another woman walking along, unaware listening to her MP3s on her headset. She flashed a smile of appeasement, kept her head down, and missed the show.
I quickly bought the milk and a banana or two and walked back toward the parakeet tree, but they were gone! I heard them again this morning, one street over. I hope they stay in our neighborhood because they bring a happy chatter to the morning routine.
The wild parakeets seem to dampen the irritation of the neighbor's barking dog, the city's service trucks, the dirt haulers and cement trucks from the construction site a block away, the obligatory "talk radio" and other noises that challenge the cheerfulness of a new day. They blanket these annoyances with their joyous communal shrieking. It's as if they could care less about the sluggish humans below them and their beeping, crunching, roaring machines. They're glad to be free and living in an abundant world.
Their presence is like a smile with wings.
