Villa Pamphili

The first time I saw them was in the dog park. It deserves its own entry, this New York state of survival park in Roma, but this time I wish to write about a different species.

Immersed in observing various kinds of dog behaviour I heard a swoooosh in the air. I looked up and saw a flock of birds just disappear behind a roof. Something was a bit off but I couldn’t quite place it. The birds were loud, in a specific way that has not yet featured in my experience pool. Not like seagulls, loud in a different way. For me, having grown up with blackbirds, magpies, crows, swallows and similar mittel-European varieties, something else was severely off. When the flock returned to make another round I saw what it was.

They were green.

As I was staring in something beyond disbelief, amore was explaining how parrots indeed live freely in Roma.

And yesterday with the day ending, as we were strolling in Villa Pamphili, the largest landscaped park in Roma, again I heard the screech and saw that flash of green. It seems they make their homes in the tall pine trees. What an improvement considering they are descendants of pet birds that escaped from their golden cages.

≈ Manja Maksimovič ≈