Feral Parrots, Los Angeles, USA on 30th July 2021 – by Jackson Roach
“I’m visiting my parents in LA for the first time in 2 years, and heard this wild sound coming from the tree in their front yard. When I went out to try to see what was making it, it turned out to be a single feral parrot, which you hear at the beginning of this recording. Then, while I was standing there, a huge flock of them flew in, all chattering, and all landed in the tree where the first one was. They had this very loud conference, and then all took off again and flew away. I’d heard that there was a population of feral parrots in LA, several generations on from their escaped-pet ancestors, but I’d never seen or heard them myself. There are apparently thousands and thousands of them here now, all feral and living their own lives in huge flocks that move around the city. They are (like horses and starlings in the Western hemisphere, and tomatoes and potatoes in the Eastern hemisphere, and so many other things) living traces of settler-colonialism and capitalism and globalization, fads and careless window openings and fires, sex and luck and random chance. They’re also just a hundred bright green and red birds saying ‘hey! hey! i’m right here! here! yeah right here! no right here! yes here! hey! hi! where are you going? hey!'”
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