A good friend of mine was looking after another friends parrot this weekend. I have always loved animals and she kindly invited me to join her while she gave him a bird bath and fed him nuts. He was a very handsome parrot with a look about him that seemed to me to imply a greater intelligence than I’d ever given a bird credit for.
After graciously and gently eating nuts from my fingers he flew around the room for a while and settled on the top of the TV shuffling up and down and looking very cute and endearing indeed…. however suddenly, he swooped across the room, heading straight for me. Whether or not the poor creature had decided to make friends and sit on my shoulder like all good parrots in pirates films do, I will never know, but the truth is that a rather large bird with a big beak was flying straight towards me and I panicked!
My instinct was to scream and duck, which in turn I think alarmed the poor parrot so much that he bit (pecked?) me with his large, sharp beak. I would never in my life have expected that being attacked by a parrot would be one of the life experiences that I would be able to list before I die, however every time I look at my ‘peck’ marks I can’t help but giggle – what a ridiculous situation to find yourself in! (The parrot, by the way is fine!).
