Brooklyn: Land of the Pizza-Eating Parrots!

Two wild parrots on Bedford Avenue enjoy some freshly-baked Brooklyn pizza.

I was walking down Brooklyn's Bedford Avenue on Friday when I heard a pronounced crunching sound coming from overhead. I looked up, and there in a tree was a pair of wild monk parrots sharing a slice of pizza.

"Eureka!" - I shouted, reaching for my trusty camera, cognizent that I was on the cusp of a new discovery that would forever enlighten scientists studying the fascinating species known as Myiopsitta Monachus. For while it has been known since Charles Darwin studied the monk parrot in the 1830's that the species is "omnivorous" (meaning that it will eat almost anything, as long as it tastes good), and that bagel-eating among New Jersey wild parrots has been demonstrated in the field (Evans-Fragale, 2004) no actual evidence of pizza-eating among wild parrots has, to my knowledge, existed in the formal literature, until now.

It stands to reason, however, that in a place like Brooklyn, where good pizzarias are as nearly numerous as parking meters, wild monk parrots would adapt to the practice of pizza-eating, and even the time-honored Brooklyn folk custom of discarding the uneaten part of one's pizza slice on the street to supply food for other needy life forms.


Like many Brooklynites on a budget, wild parrots in Brooklyn share slices when cash reserves are low.


The thick, glutenous crust of this pizza slice is no match for the monk parrot's sharp beak, honed to razor sharpness by months of cutting through tree branches.



Judging from this parrot's contented expression, pizza appears to have the same mood-altering properties in monk parrots that it has in people.



After eating through most of the slice, the parrots simply drop the remainder on the pavement below, honoring a time-honored Brooklyn tradition that is gratefully appreciated by other hungry species, such as this English sparrow.