Parrots in Dubai... a lesson to be learned?

Parrots, I’m told, cannot fly very long distances. I’ve seen wild parrots from my secondary school days in India (not seen them much, except in captivity on my recent visits). I have never seen parrots while I was in Malaysia where I was born and lived until 1969 and then worked, from 1982 to 1987.

Of all places, I noticed parrots in what seemed migratory flocks of scores flying by in batches, as the sun set in the winter of 2007 in Dubai. They were flying in formation, one flock after the other, with the occasional stray frantically finding its way, but more or less in the same direction, led by instinct. Perhaps the first time I noticed them in my 20 years in the United Arab Emirates. There were hundreds, maybe thousands of them, parrots, flying far above my apartment balcony, as I sipped on my single malt.

I remember at the time, I had pointed the birds out to my wife, but she observed them far above in the fading light for a few seconds, but refused to believe they were parrots.

Well, now I am sure they were parrots.

It’s the beginning of winter 2008 in Dubai, and flocks of similar green parrots are flying in the same direction above my apartment window where I am nestled, sipping my third double vodka and red orange (some things never change, like the parrots). However, like me having migrated from single malt to vodka, some of the batches of parrots seemed to be flying at lower altitude. This permitted me to determine they are indeed parrots; green hue, long, slightly sagging tails, familiar bird calls… I could hear even their cousins (our two pet budgerigars) answering their cries. Wish I had released the budgies at that point, but they wouldn’t last the approaching summer, I thought. Charitable, conscientious human, ignoring who it was that imprisoned them in the first place!

So what’s the lesson?

No life-changing, ingenious, business leadership pointers here. I enjoyed watching every single flock of the parrots fly by as the sun set in Dubai and, continued to my 7th or 8th vodka and red orange (can’t remember how many). Following that, I had one of the soundest, most relaxing six hours of sleep I have had since 1982.