This previous Saturday, I received a telephone call from a woman, MaryAnne (not her real name), who lives in Greenwich Village and whose pet parrots I care for. After I answered her call, she paused for a long moment and then, very unexpectedly, she offered to give me her pet African grey parrot. I was stunned. Nearly all of my life, I have wanted a so-called “Congo” African grey parrot, Psittacus erithacus erithacus, but I never got one for a variety of reasons (“my life is not stable enough” or “I can’t afford one” were my typical reasons). But really,…
The Science Creative Quarterly
By grrlscientist
GrrlScientist is an ornithologist, evolutionary biologist and freelance science writer who somehow scrapes by in New York City, along with her companion parrots. Her wide variety of skills and abilities have uniquely qualified her to be the world's first scientist who is unemployable in any capacity whatsoever. Her writing has appeared in a variety of obscure publications, often without monetary compensation. GrrlScientist will reveal her real-life name in exchange for a reasonable job offer. This piece was reprinted with permission from her blog, Living the Scientific Life (or Scientist, Interrupted).