Meet Larry.

These are the true and factual chronicles of Larry the Parrot.

I first met Larry when I moved into my new home in breezy Marina del Rey, CA. I had just unpacked my first box when I realized that my cozy one-bedroom apartment on the Marina was actually situated right smack-dab in the living room of several incredible creatures like playful Sea Lions, Egrets, Great Blue Herons, Great White Herons, and even Squid (just to name a few). Now, I had just moved from New York City where the extent of my bird watching had been Pigeons and Crows, but I'd read about birds in books with the little girl I babysat for five years, so I knew a thing or two. She and I shared a slight obsession with our flying feathered friends, and my new home provided me with the perfect opportunity to watch as various aquatic fowl lived out their airborne lives from the comfort of my balcony cuddle chair.

I soon discovered that my favorite part of the day was around sunset when the animals start preparing for bed. I would grab my tea and sit for an easy and enjoyable hour or so as I watched the Pelicans diving into the marina for their final after-dinner snack, the Sea Lions slowly leaving their perches of diminishing sun while playfully making their way to the rocks and the most majestic of my neighbors, the Egrets and the Herons, come in for the night to roost in the Tree right in front of my apartment.

Its almost magical the way Egrets and Herons fly: the Herons with their long necks and the Egrets with their lithe, white bodies that look so soft my hand itches to touch one. The most beautiful part is seeing them coming in from across the marina with the sun on their wings as they gracefully beat then glide their way to a perfectly executed landing into the Tree. Its breath-taking and awe-inspiring. Nature at its finest.

So, here I am enjoying my evening tea watching the beauty of the birds before me, when I hear this far away song of a very different bird. I can't place it because it is like a non-stop Coach Sylvester whistle. And I know its not the Egrets because as beautiful as they are, they have the loudest ugliest honk you can imagine (which they use freely when any other bird gets in their own private space on the Tree).

Sure enough, in the distance, I notice a flying form frantically flapping his little wings as fast as he can heading towards the Tree and singing his shrill little whistle without pausing for breath.

As he drew near I could see in the light of the sun that this little bird was bright green. He sang ecstatically and flapped erratically right up to the Egrets' Tree and without fear chased old Hercules (the Great Blue Heron who makes his nightly respite at the top of the Tree) around the building. Once he had his fun with old Herc, he crashed straight into the tree causing the Egrets to squawk and scream with annoyance at this green interruption of their nightly preening. But Larry didn't seem to mind. He just continued to search for his perfect spot in the Tree and once he found it, nestled himself in amongst the other birds. The Egrets and Herons honked a bit more to show their annoyance but eventually everyone calmed down and Larry had himself a nice little snooze and was apparently none the wiser that his neighbors were much larger, whiter and bluer with long skinny necks and legs while he was short, green and a little bit chubby.

It didn't seem to bother him at all that his flight was neither graceful nor fast and his feathers were not the typical color of beauty amongst his neighbors. He didn't seem to notice that his kind of bird is not supposed to live near salt water and sea winds but rather in jungles and warm misty forests where other tropically colored birds abide. But more than that, he didn't seem to understand or even care that he stuck out like a sore thumb here in the cool Marina of southern California.

And that is precisely why I decided Larry the Parrot was the coolest bird I had ever met.