Parrot

Mojo seems an unlikely character in a lawsuit. "C'mere and give me a kiss," she squawks, flapping in her cage. But the African gray parrot is at the heart of a case moving through the Baltimore County court system, pitting an avian-loving Essex couple against a longtime Dundalk vet. And so far, the law has been siding with the bird. Mojo's owners, Mary and Leo Wade Adams of Essex, say a doctor at the Dundalk Animal Hospital over-clipped the young parrot's wing feathers, causing the bird to over-prune herself - a condition known as "feather picking."

Late one night 30 years ago, Bob Brenner entered the Clarksville home he had just bought. It was the first time he had set foot in the house after dark. What he saw astounded him. "A full moon shown through the skylight," he remembered. "It was so bright I thought the lights were on. My shadow, and the shadows of things around me, was like nothing I'd ever seen before - long, like in sunlight." From then on, a sign has hung at the entrance to his Howard County property showing the home's name: Moonshadows.

Pirates of all shapes and sizes bounded off the Clipper City tall ship yesterday, dressed in black hats and pirate garb, pistols at the ready, for their annual invasion of Fells Point. Greeting them was Vince Zegowitz, a 64-year-old retired oceanographer whose ruddy face attested to his 30 years at sea. He roamed the wharf with his family, dressed in loose black pants, black construction boots, a flowing white blouse, black vest and black bandana. "I feel like Johnny Depp in drag - because these are all women's clothes," he said jokingly.

Check any dictionary and you'll find that the word "parrot" means, among other things, to ape, to mimic, to emulate. But for the past six years, very little has been derivative in the life of Janice Rothe, a veteran Baltimore County teacher who took a year's sabbatical in 1995 after a student attacked her. During that time off, what seemed like a picayune family decision altered her life, and her family's, as surely as a nestling takes wing. Maybe she just needed a distraction. Maybe, like most career teachers, she's naturally inquisitive.

DAMASCUS - Sure, Brian Wilson can tell you all about his passion for parrots. It is a bond that spurred him to act two weeks ago when he got an emergency request to rescue 81 exotic birds from caged filth at a Gaithersburg townhouse. But the 53-year-old disabled ex-firefighter prefers demonstrating just how well he clicks with these brainy, vocal creatures that can live up to a century. He runs a parrot foundation from his Damascus home, though it seems like their house. His existing flock of several dozen macaws, cockatoos, African grays and other parrot types have the run of his living room, dining room, kitchen, back-room aviary and sun-filled garage.

J. Edward Johnston - aka the "Birdman of Guilford" - has been inviting strangers onto his front lawn to visit with his parrots and cockatiels for nearly two decades. At 80, he's still squawking out facts about the birds (for example: Parrots are the fourth-smartest animals on the planet) and setting the stage for the Houdini-esque escape act of a blue macaw named Margaret. "She's so fast, you won't see her [execute her] escape," Johnston told a group of visitors recently, waving his hand toward Margaret, who was perched on his shoulder.

The signs of rebellion are all around Leonard E. Moodispaw, if you know where to look. His mustache is bushier than most boardroom types would permit. He sometimes wears ties untied and draped around the collar of his dress shirt. He has a stuffed parrot hanging in one corner of his office.Moodispaw, 55, is a Jimmy Buffett fan or "Parrothead" who likes to say that his life is a quest for Key West. Several weeks ago, he stood in front of the assembled employees of Columbia's Essex Corp. and told them about his latest reckless act:He was coming to work there.

Jules Verne's character may have strived to make it around the world in 80 days, but the pupils at Hampstead's Spring Garden Elementary School did it in five. Without leaving school grounds, they flew from Australia to West Africa, China to Western Europe, Japan to Mexico, racking up the miles and stickers of parrots, fans and flowers on their unofficial passports - a lanyard around their necks. Along the way, they learned that rojo means red in Spanish, that an African thumb piano looks nothing like the ebony-and-ivory keyed instrument they know, and that eating Cheerios with chopsticks is not as hard as it looks.

Regarding the recent column by Susan Reimer ("Rage and resignation at the gun control town hall," Feb. 7), it has got to be the worst piece of racist diatribe I have read in years. In her view, because I am a white male who owns a firearm, I am a racist? There is absolutely no logic in her argument nor any basis in fact. But, I suppose in her mind, anyone who does not parrot her own view on life is automatically deemed to be of despicable character and lacking in sound judgment.

A developer has revised his proposal to build 25 homes clustered on one-sixth-acre lots in Ellicott City to appease some of the project's neighbors, but his new plan is still drawing objections from other neighbors.The plan by landowner Timothy E. Welsh, who lives off Parrot Drive in the Font Hill community, calls for new homes off Parrot Drive and Timberknoll Lane and backing onto Springfield Drive.The revision reduces the number of houses proposed for Parrot Drive from seven to four and increases the size of the 25 lots to about a quarter-acre.