"Birdland"

by Michael Knight (2003)

The lead story in Michael Knight's [no known connection to David Hasselhof] collection Goodnight Nobody sets up a premise that pet parrots let loose in Rhode Island spend their winters in Elbow, Alabama:

Between the months of April and September, Pawtucket, Rhode Island, is inhabited by several generations of African parrots... But in September, when winter creeps in from the ocean and cold air kindles hazy instincts, the parrots flee south for warmer climes...

There is a grain of truth in this. The descendants of escaped parakeets, not parrots, do live in Rhode Island, but they don't migrate. The last known colony of the birds was located in Riverside, near the Crescent Park Carousel.