Recently, while I was out in California I went on a parrot chase. Yes, a parrot chase. You may ask, “what the heck is a parrot chase?” Well it is exactly what it sounds like.
We met at a park just before dusk and waited and watched the skies. We were in an area known for parrots coming together just before the roost for the night.
All of the sudden, a couple of parrots fly above and landed on some trees in the distance. Then several more parrots did the same thing and then hundreds!
We were a bit of a distance away from the parrots, so the leader of the group told us to jump into our cars and drive a couple of blocks over to the trees where the birds were gathering.
So we jumped in and quickly drove a couple of streets over, (this is the reason its called a chase), we all got out of our cars and ran down the street with our binoculars and cameras just as the flock of parrots took to flight and went back to the trees in the park where we had just come from!
Back in the cars we go… finally on the way back the group somehow split up, some of us stopping partway back because we saw hundreds of parrots in the trees on the side of the street and the rest of the group going back to the park…
Here are some of the Parrots that we saw. These are the Red-crowned Parrot.
They live in California, Florida and Texas, USA. They are supposed to be escapees from captivity, but there are sooooo many of them that they are definitely breeding.
These are the Yellow-headed Parrot. Unlike other parrots, who can’t be missed when they noisily fly overhead, these parrots fly silently.