The plum trees were blooming at Embarcadero Plaza, and a hundred parrots methodically pruned each one from every tree.  They ate and screamed and glissaded from tree to tree, less shy than usual, letting people come within six feet of them. The sidewalk was littered with twigs.

People stopped in mid-commute, letting trains leave without them and taxis line up at the stand. Cameras came out, held loosely at the waist as their owners gawked. Shapes of dark sharp wings against darkening sky.

1. 
   Siona 2005 02 05 at 9:15:09 pm

   Glissade.

   I love that word, but I love the activity more.

    

   I live with a parrot. My eardrums suffer enough as is: I can hardly imagine hundreds of them.

2. 
   Jarrett 2005 02 06 at 10:43:40 pm

   There’s a book on them now, I hear.  Has a parrot colony ever been so celebrated?