So for a few weeks in the summer of 2023, we were all surrounded by dinosaurs.

According to Wikipedia at least, because the editors had decided it was finally time to change the species classification of birds to the clade dinosauria.

Our new columnist Michael Gresco wrote a great piece about this for Atlas.

Anyway, ultimately the Wikipedia's chickened out, maybe I should say they dinosaured out,

and they changed it back to just birds.

But they were not wrong.

When you walk out of your house and you hear

sparrows chirping or you see geese flying overhead,

when you order buffalo wings,

you are hearing, seeing, and eating the descendants of dinosaurs.

So let's give some appreciation to our feathered dinosaur friends. We are going to make a visit today to an unusual group of them, a flock of beautiful,

colorful parrots that have made their home in my favorite cemetery. Today on Creatures Week, we joined producer

Johanna Mayer on a visit to the parrots of Greenwood Cemetery. Let me tell you about one of my favorite urban legends.

It starts with legends. International Flight when it dropped on the tarmac. The crate hit the ground, split open, and out came parrots. Loud, bright green parrots, making their big break, trying to make it in New York.

Some say the great parrot escape happened in the 60s.

Some say it was the 70s.

Some say it was hundreds of parrots. Some say it was the 70s. Some say it was hundreds of parrots, some say it was thousands.

But whatever actually happened, the parrots are most definitely still here. In Brooklyn Brooklyn where I live and they've taken up residence at one of my

favorite places greenwood cemetery I'm Johanna Mayer and this is Atlas Obscura, a celebration of the world's strange, incredible, and wondrous places.

Today, we're going parrot watching,

and we meet a veritable parrot expert

who explains how a cemetery became these birds unlikely home.

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