About

While I love all animals, I have a special fondness for parrots. Though charismatic and charming, parrots are, despite popular thought, not domesticated and retain their wild nature. In our homes, as if in the wild, they still chew, fulfilling an innate desire to create nesting cavities; they have powerful voices for contacting flock members at long distances; they discard uneaten food which would help disperse seeds on the forest floor; they may bite if forced into uncomfortable situations; and because they are both flock and prey animals, they find comfort in the company of their people, even if those people are not feathered. Unfortunately, many humans learn about parrot nature after they’ve brought them into their homes. Once unrealistic expectations aren’t met, the parrot may be displaced several times over the course of their lives…or worse.

​I live with several parrots who, for various reasons, had found themselves without a flock. Some were the product of a domestic breeding situation, and some where poached from the wild decades ago, forced to make a precarious journey where only a fraction would survive. Most have health issues that are a byproduct of living an unnatural life in a cage, where they are physiologically designed to be flying and expending vast amounts of energy in the wild, under natural sunlight, consuming fresh and natural foods.

Despite their questionable pasts and being of various species, these birds have adopted each other, as well as me, as their own. Through these parrots I connect with the wild, where I am transported to tropical rainforests thick with the simplicity of things before humankind. Being with them, learning their language and history, has encouraged me to be more environmentally conscious and passionately defend conservation efforts, not only of wild and naturalized parrot flocks, but of all species of animals suffering and struggling at the hands of humans.

May the wild things be free forever. ~Kimerlee Curyl

While not all of these parrots mimic human speech, they will, with varying success, mimic human laughter. For these prey animals living in an artificial world, this is a coping mechanism; a means to assimilate into an unnatural social group. But as a human with a propensity to anthropomorphize, I assign a different meaning…they laugh with me and at me, and in doing so, lessen the burden of my human existence. This flock is my muse, and my art and this site is inspired by life within it. We are The Laughing Parrots.