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https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/nov/15/los-angeles-wild-parrots-conservation>
"A morning mist hung over the palm trees as birds chattered and cars roared by
on the streets of Pasadena. It was a scene that evoked a tropical island rather
than a bustling city in north-east Los Angeles county.
“It feels parrot-y,” says Diego Blanco, a research assistant at Occidental
College’s Moore Laboratory of Zoology, nodding to the verdant flora that
surrounds us: tall trees and ornamental bushes with berries.
Blanco and John McCormack, who directs the lab, have taken me to a street
corner to look for some of the loudest – yet sometimes evasive – residents of
Los Angeles: free-flying parrots. Most are a vivid green species with a shock
of red at their head known as red-crowned parrots, but the LA basin also hosts
a number of other parrots species – including the lilac-crowned, yellow-crowned
and the Nanday parakeet.
“You’d be surprised sometimes,” McCormack says. “They can be right above you
and you don’t even see them.”
Instead, you often hear them first. The two researchers name the birds
squawking in the vegetation above us. Scrub jay. Band-tailed pigeon. Then Diego
gives a yelp. “Oh oh oh, those are parrots!” he shouts, pointing upward.
Indeed, a group of six bright green parrots have just flown overhead.
We take off on a parrot chase – a very lopsided parrot chase, since they are
soaring above the city streets and we are walking.
As we follow the chattering flyers tantalizingly out of reach across the urban
wilds of Pasadena, it’s clear: the parrots have the upper hand in this city."
Share and enjoy,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
