lorikeet lore

you've probably seen them squawking in the skies above los angeles, upsetting your morning stroll or ruining your sunday brunch; that feathered gang of green lorikeets. they appear so randomly, almost like a figment of your imagination. but they're real. undeniable as their unignorable raucous approach.

i first saw the green flock when i was a kid growing up inbetween what are now los angeles hipster towns. their existence, roaming free and wild, was always a great curiosity to me. did they fly the coop from some divey, illegal "pet shop" on the east side? were they some collector's lot of lorikeets perhaps? what is behind the lore of the lorikeets?

i convinced myself that you could wish them on to others. (yes, another one of my strange superstitions.) all you had to do was start up conversation with a local angeleno about the lorikeets, or else think of someone when you see them, and they would be blessed with the sighting. i later found through discussions with other people (ok, so maybe it was one other person. maybe two) that they had a similar belief about the birds. i remember one weekend a while back i had seen the winged wanderers. i went to work the next day and told my boss. two days later he saw them near his place. coincidence? or the beginnings of lorikeet lore? so it sent me speculating, can you really send the lorikeets to visit someone by the mere suggestion of it? and how exactly would this cycle work?

i recently saw the birds flying over my burbank home. i didn't think i'd ever see them on this side of town. so i'm thinking someone else saw the green harpies and sent them my way. why else would they come over the hill? usually these birds are found in the towns of los angeles proper. now they are traveling in wider circles. unless, of course, they are not the original green lorikeets of los angeles but rather the kin or distant relatives of those first avian anomalies. like the burbank brigade or something! so then these birds carry with them their own legend. and now that i have seen them and am sharing the tale with you, perhaps you will be harassed by their shrill calls, surprised by their lime plumage. (do you hear the crazy in me ramping up?)

well, it's just a thought.

i'm just trying to perpetuate the fictional lore of the lorikeets.

sheesh.