Re: FW: [SBB] South Bay Parrots

[Ashutosh Sinha <[[email protected]]>]

One year back I used to live in Fair Oaks West Apartments at 655 S
Fairoaks Ave in Sunnyvale. Fairoaks Ave is opposite of Remington on El
Camino Real. There were few Eucalyptus Trees just outside my window. In
winter, around Nov to April, they are in bloom. A group of approximately
24 Mitered Parakeets used to visit it everyday without gap between
7-8.30AM. They are very noisy bunch and used to wake me up everyday.
They were very accustomed to people. These Eucalyptus trees face Fair
oaks Ave, which is quite busy road, and is in parking lot. They don't
mind people standing 4-5 feet below them.

They used to eat Eucalyptus flower and Anna's Hummingbird used to
bombard them. I could not figure out which portion of the flower they
eat. They pluck a flower give it few turns in there beak and throw it
away. Whole process does not take more than 5-10 seconds. They used to
stay there for not more than 5-10 minutes but in just 5-10 minute
parking lot was filled with Eucalyptus flower spit out by them.
Interesting to see a South American bird surviving in North America on
Australian diet. I suspect that they have few such favorite spots and
they visit them everyday in some pattern. During weekends I saw them
around noon few times but I did not find any pattern in the
noon/afternoon visit but, there morning visit was very regular.

I never reported it on SBB because I thought being a feral population of
introduced species it is not of much interest. This species is not on
the County List.

-Ashutosh



Kris Olson wrote:
> 
> So cruise by Sunnyvale at evening roost time and report some sightings!
> 
> ------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> Here are the locations sighted for viewing parrots in Santa Clara Co, from
> all these messages:
> 
> [1] Las Palmas park in Sunnyvale near Hollenbeck Av.[Vivek Tiwari]
> 
> [2] Sunnyvale _Aratinga_ flock, roughly centered on St. Martin's (Mitered
> Parakeets) {B. Bousman]  [Kris: I think this is the address--  590 Central
> Avenue, Sunnyvale, CA  94086-6357]
> 
> [3] The Palo Alto flock, formerly centered on St. Marks on Colorado Street 
> has included Mitered Parakeets, Red-masked Parakeets (_Aratinga 
> erythrogenys), and Blue-crowned Parakeets (_Aratinga acuticaudata_). [B.
> Bousman]
> 
> [4]  10/13/01, I happened to be in a slightly different part of Sunnyvale in
> the evening and was treated to the remarkable sight of 3 groups of vocal
> conures joining together to form a flock of 25 birds, which then headed off
> towards the junction of Remington and Mary at 6:35pm, apparently heading to
> an evening roost. [Mike Rogers]
> 
> [5] Barron's Park - Palo Alto - a jogger recently told me there is a large
> flock in some park toward the "back" of Barron's Park [Kris]
> 
> 
> Kris Olson, Menlo Park

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