Having an exotic pet like a Pirate Parrot perched on a shoulder is a staple of the genre, popularized by Long John Silver.
The pirates loaded their guns with anti-tropes: tv tropes pirates
They sailed into a storm of redundancy. Lightning bolts were just deus ex machinas. Waves were rising action that never crested. And there, in the eye of the chaos, floated the Author’s Block , a ghost galleon manned by the spirits of abandoned story ideas. Having an exotic pet like a Pirate Parrot