Parrots Again

Scattered throughout this blog are stories and pictures of Les Perruches de Paris.

Perruche is French for parakeet.

I saw them first in Parc Montsourris.

Then also in Jardin de Luxembourg.

Then also Jardin des Plantes, Bois de Vincennes Quai Bernard, Avenue Henri Quatre, and, occasionally flitting across the Seine by le Palais Royale.

I have never seen them in Bois de Boulogne.

The best pictures I ever got of them was in 2016.

When a pair flew out of le Jardin des Plantes and into one of the sweetgum-like trees that line an access ramp to the Paris Cops’ Boat Dock ( an unofficial name).

I was at the cop dock taking pictures of the cormorants that hang out there.

I heard a screech at my back and when I turned around I saw the best parrot picture opportunity I had ever had.

The birds were inspecting a hole in the tree trunk – guess for nesting in the – then – coming spring.

A few days ago I was in Rome.

We were walking back to our apartment along the Tiber at sundown of our first day there.

The Tiber is lined with trees like the one in the image of the cop dock parrot.

So I wasn’t completely surprised when I thought that I kept hearing that familiar screech from the limbs above my head.

The next day I began seeing them as they catapulted across the sky in that acrobatic way that parrots seem to love.

There must be thousands, maybe tens of thousands of them.

I was on a quest: get a decent picture of some Rome Parrots.

I finally succeeded on my almost last day.

I pursued them to a roost in a garden at the end of Via Corsini.

They live, and I think probably, nest in the palm trees of the garden.

The surprise was, and is, they are a different kind of parakeet.