[meteorite-list] OFF TOPIC - Unusual

From: Mark Miconi <mam602_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu Apr 22 10:29:53 2004
Message-ID: <007601c37727$1e49f8a0$d7e16a44_at_ph.cox.net>

Michael,
Thank you for ending a long search. We have roughly 6 to 8 of these parrots
in my neighborhood in Phoenix. They have been feeding on the fist size
magenta colored fruit our peruvian pear cactus produces....much to the
dismay of the white wing doves and the house finches that usually have the
cactus to themselves. I have been searching high and low to find our what
type of parrot they are. I started to notice them flying a month ago. I have
not been able to get good photos of them, they do not like all the commotion
on our street with the traffic. The cactus fruit is gone now but they just
flowered again so hopefully the parrots will return when the fruits ripen in
another month.

Thanks to your wonderful photos I now know what they are and where they are
from.

Mark M.
Phoenix AZ
----- Original Message -----
From: Michael L Blood <mlblood_at_cox.net>
To: Meteorite List <meteorite-list_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Sent: Tuesday, September 09, 2003 11:10 AM
Subject: [meteorite-list] OFF TOPIC - Unusual


WARNING: This is off topic, so, some/many of you may wish to hit
your delete button.

        Yesterday (Sept. 8) a very unusual occurrence took place in my
yard: A flock of a dozen parrots came to eat my leftover sunflower
seeds!
         When I went out to pick up the paper at about 8 AM I was alerted
when a neighbor lady called out to me, "Mr. Blood, there are parrots in
your sunflowers!" And, to my delight and amazement, there were,
indeed, parrots feeding off the Russian Giant Sunflowers! I had left
most of them to dry in the sun, even though the birds had been eating
themS. but I had surely never seen parrots doing so.
    In fact, there were twelve of them ­ an entire flock. And
beautiful they were, indeed. Most amazing, they were clearly
all the same species.
    I grabbed my camera and went out to get some photos. You can see
most of the photos I captured of these beautiful creatures at:

http://community.webshots.com/album/89632975MfUNTL

(Particularly nice are photos # P16 & P15)

    I later researched the species. They had beautiful blue
heads, orangish top beak and near black bottom beak with
a little blue in their underwing and red in the underside of
some of their tail feathers. Their legs and feet were flesh
colored and when I later examined their photos closely, I
could see no bands on any of their legs, indicating they likely
escaped bird importers in the Tiajuana area and/or have
bread in the wilds of this area. They turned out to be Sharp-tailed
Conures (Aratinga acuticaudata) which are native to Brazil,
Bolivia, Uruguay and Argentina. So, they are clearly an escaped
flock that have naturalized in the area.
    It is very rare to see parrot flocks in San Diego, but one
hears of them appearing here & there on occasion. Usually,
however, such flocks are reported to contain mixed species
of parrots, presumably attracted to their own kind having
escaped captivity individually. This is the only occurrence
I have been aware of where an entire flock was the same
species.
    In any event, I will certainly be planting more sunflowers
next year!
    Best wishes, Michael




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Received on Tue 09 Sep 2003 07:07:18 PM PDT