So much of what we see in the city is the result of chance.
For instance, some say that if it were it not for a series of seemingly unrelated events, Flatbush might not be home to a sizable wild parrot population, or the site one of the city's most interesting tours: the Brooklyn Parrot Safari.
The free safari — led by 60-year-old Flatbush resident Steve Baldwin — takes place once a month, and allows participants to "celebrate the wild quaker parrots of Brooklyn," Narratively reported.
On the tour, Baldwin recounts just how the parrots got to the residential Brooklyn neighborhood. In the 1960s and '70s, Baldwin says, demand for birds as pets was growing, just as the Argentine government expanded its agricultural interests into the habitat of their local birds.
After a failed extermination attempt, Baldwin says that the Argentine birds were sold as pets. In the late '60s, one shipment of parrots went loose upon landing at JFK airport, eventually making New York — as well as other urban spaces — their home.
Baldwin's story cannot be substantiated, however, as neither an insurance claim or a police report regarding these events were ever filed, he said.
As Narratively reported, Baldwin's goal for the tours is "to create positive PR" for the parrots, which are still commonly regarded as agricultural pests.
The tours take place near Brooklyn College, and Baldwin only asks one thing of participants: That they not give out the location of the most densely-populated tree, which Baldwin deems the "Tree of Life."
Baldwin likes the fact that he can use the term "safari" when describing a walk through residential parts of Brooklyn.
"Trekking with safari hats and sedan chairs through a completely settled environment in search of strange avian invaders," Baldwin told Narratively, it's "kind of a funny idea."
