EVERY SUMMER EVENING, as dusk descends on Temple City, California, hundreds of raucous green and red parrots settle into the sweetgum trees planted along the city’s residential streets. Abruptly, the cacophony falls silent. It will begin again before dawn, as the birds take off toward the northwest to spend another day foraging for sustenance in the supermarket parking lots and suburban streets and strip malls of greater Los Angeles.

Some of San Francisco's wild conures survey the city and Alcatraz island. (Photo courtesy of Mark Bittner.)

These are flocks of red-crowned and lilac-crowned parrots, also known as Amazons. Both are seriously endangered in their native Central American habitats. Here, however, their numbers are increasing. In this valley live an estimated 2,000 red-crowned parrots and an estimated 400 lilac-crowns. From all appearances, they are healthy, growing flocks.

And they’re not the only ones.

On the coast, a flock of black-hooded parakeets (or Nanday conures) has taken up residence in Malibu. To the north, an estimated 1,000 rose-ringed parakeets (also known as Indian ringnecks) roost in palms and feast on the blossoms of native and introduced fruit trees of suburban Bakersfield.

Up in San Francisco, a small but famous flock of red-masked parakeets (cherry-headed conures) has become an established city attraction. In between are at least a dozen smaller flocks of the same and various other psittacids, holding their own in California’s urban and suburban landscapes.

Florida, home of feral parrots
Established flocks of wild parrots are also widespread in Florida, where at least 10,000 monk parakeets (or Quakers) are now believed to live.

Florida also hosts substantial populations of wild black-hooded parakeets, red-crowns, orange-winged parrots (Amazons), yellow-chevroned parakeets, white-winged parakeets, mitred parakeets (mitred conures) and chestnut-fronted macaws (severe macaws). Arizona has a burgeoning population of wild lovebirds.

None of these birds is native to the United States. Only two species of parrot - the Carolina parakeet and the thick-billed parrot - were ever indigenous to the U.S. The Carolina parakeet became extinct in 1918, killed off by a combination of guns, habitat devastation and capture. The thick-billed parrot, which has not been seen in Arizona since the 1930s, is undergoing a reintroduction effort there.

Where did all these parrots come from? And what are they doing here?

Lost in the suburbs
Experts point to the confluence of two key events, both of which accelerated in the 1960s. One was the mass importation of wild-caught parrots. The other was mass residential development.

In the decades prior to 1992, when Congress banned the importation of wild-caught birds by passing the Wild Bird Conservation Act, hundreds of thousands of wild-caught parrots were imported into the U.S. According to Kimball Garrett, an ornithologist and researcher who founded The California Parrot Project to monitor and study California’s parrot population, those imported birds were the progenitors of today's naturalized flocks.

"We think all these populations got established when a large shipment came in directly from the wild and, for whatever reason, they (the parrots) got out," says Garrett. "They were wild birds. They knew how to survive in the wild. We don't believe these populations were started by some little hand-raised bird getting free."

Once released, says Garrett, the wild-caught imported parrots of yore did not have to struggle in the open grassland and dry scrub of California or learn to survive in the inhospitable swamps of Florida. On the contrary. As if by magic, they found themselves in parrot habitat.

All of the exotic, non-native tropical plantings so beloved by California landscapers are perfect for parrots. The palms, the eucalyptuses, the exotic fruit and nut trees, the ornamental flowers and berries - what more could a parrot want?

And where there is development, there is water. Plenty of natural waterways, as well as concrete washes, flood control channels, debris basins and reservoirs for parrot bathing and drinking needs.

As the years went by and urban sprawl did its work, this landscape has replicated itself over and over and again. The parrots have done well.

Usually not a threat
Native bird species, on the other hand, have suffered and dwindled. But biologists, ornithologists and other experts do not believe this has anything to do with the parrots. The parrots are thriving in degraded habitat planted with non-native flora. Most native birds, they say, have long since disappeared from these places.

"As far as we can tell, parrots are not displacing other species," says Garrett. "The habitat is being converted. That is what is doing in the native species. In these new habitats, a new set of birds is coming to thrive. The parrots didn't bulldoze down the natural habitats. They’re just taking advantage of what has replaced them."

Monk parakeets in Clearwater, Fla., have chosen stadium lights as a site for their huge twig nests. (Photo courtesy of Bill Pranty.)

Bill Pranty, a Florida ornithologist who has studied monk parakeet and other naturalized parrot populations in Florida, echoes this sentiment.

"If you look at where the monks are, they need TV antennas and electrical substations and exotic palms for nesting," Pranty says.

"These birds would have nothing to eat if it weren't for birdfeeders and the exotic plants we've planted throughout the tropical areas of Florida. They have almost nothing to do with native plants. They stay in urban and suburban areas, and the native diversity of those areas is already compromised. Most of the native species are gone. There are crows, pigeons and starlings. That's pretty much it."

The conures of Maui
Experts caution that naturalized flocks should be monitored. If they do begin to venture away from residential and urban areas and into natural undeveloped habitat, they will almost certainly interfere with remaining native species. So far, however, there have been few reports of this.

An exception appears to be the wild mitred conures of Maui, Hawaii. State authorities are worried that a flock of about 260 birds will displace native seabirds.

The conures apparently descended from a pair of wild-caught mitreds set loose in the 1980s by their owner, who let them come and go out of an aviary. The birds have survived by feeding on fruit and other trees on the island, including Chinese banyan, guava, rose apple and mangoes. Cliff dwellers in their native Peru and Bolivia, they have taken up residence in the 300-foot seacliffs on Maui's north shore, where they nest in crevices between layers of volcanic ash.

The conures are crowding out wedge-tailed shearwaters, bulwer petrels, and other Hawaiian seabirds that would normally use those burrows, said Mele Fong with the Maui Invasive Species Committee. And that's not all she's worried about.

"(The conures') expanding range, potential to transmit diseases to Hawaiian birds, and the dispersal of nonnative tree species all pose serious threats for native Hawaiian flora and fauna," said Fong in an e-mail. "Furthermore, the ability to damage commercial fruit and seed farms presents a serious economic concern. Complete removal of parrots from the wilds on Maui was recommended."

Last year, with the state's blessing, the Maui Animal Rescue Sanctuary tried to capture the flock so it could be housed at its 5.5-acre property in Haiku. But the birds were too difficult to reach in their cliffside location.

Fong said her group now will conduct up to three more studies on the birds' habits before deciding who to contract for their control.

Peach-face lovebirds have adapted well to Arizona living. (Photo courtesy of Fran Barbano.)

Lovebirds love Arizona
Another place where parrots have been sighted investigating the nest cavities of native birds is central Arizona, north of Phoenix and Scottsdale, where an unknown number of wild peach-faced lovebirds have become established.

Native to southwestern Africa, the lovebird, unlike most naturalized wild parrots, is well suited to the natural habitat of its adopted landscape. It therefore has the potential to do some damage. Greg Clark, an area bird enthusiast, has been monitoring the lovebirds since 1998 and is gathering information about their distribution and behavior on his website, http://mirror-pole.com. So far, he says, they seem to be everywhere east of Route 17 and north of Route 60, also known as the Superstition Highway.

"We don't have a good idea of the numbers yet, but we think it's pretty big," Clark says. "Anecdotally, we've heard about people chopping down trees and finding nesting colonies with 50 eggs, we’ve heard of flocks with as many as 100 birds. I've seen flocks of 20 to 30 birds in East Tempe. You can’t count them."

As far as he can tell, Clark says, the lovebirds are sticking close to residential areas. People love them, he says. And as long as they stay in town, so will he.

Not an agricultural pest
Another fear that arises with naturalized parrots, especially with rose-rings and monk parakeets, is that they will become agricultural pests, as they are known to be in their native countries. Again, though, because the birds stick close to urban and residential areas, this hasn't happened on a noticeable scale.

Alison Sheehey, a graduate student who studies the population of about 1,000 rose-rings in Bakersfield, Calif., believes the rose-ring will never become the kind of agricultural pest in Bakersfield that it has proven to be in its native India, Pakistan and Afghanistan. It is constrained, she says, by geography.

Rose-rings need a water source close to vegetation, according to Sheehey. To get to any land used for agricultural purposes, they would have to leave Bakersfield and travel along waterways bereft of plant life. This, she says, they will not do.

Wild ringnecks often are difficult to spot because they blend in so well with their surroundings. (Photo courtesy of Alison Sheehey.)

"If they ever become agricultural pests, it will be because the suburbs moved out to the farmlands, taking the rose-wings with them," she says.

The monk parakeet, once believed to have major agricultural pest potential, can now be found thriving in more than a dozen states, including Alabama, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Illinois, Louisiana, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Texas and Virginia. But it has yet to noticeably damage any crops. It, too, appears to be happily sustained by non-native humans and their non-native plantings. Several flocks even prosper year-round in Chicago and its suburbs, subsisting through the harsh winters almost entirely on human-supplied birdseed.

Mark Spreyer, a biologist who directs the Stillman Nature Center in Illinois and who authored the section on monks for the book, Birds of North America, has been watching a flock in Chicago's Southside for 10 years. He describes them as "especially interesting."

"They chose the right place to put up a colony," he says. "Everyone there really likes them. It's a really diverse neighborhood and I think there's a kind of multiculturalism connection between the people and the birds. They fascinate people. As an educator it gives me a great opportunity to talk to an urban audience. People want to know all about them. Where are they from? How do they work? What is the weather like where they came from? When you see a parrot flying around wild on a March day in Chicago with the snow blowing off Lake Michigan, you've got questions."

Spreyer thinks monks may be filling the niche left by the Carolina parakeet, the range of which once extended across the southeastern U.S. and which may also have been seen as far west as Illinois. Certainly, monks are the most adaptable of the naturalized parrots in the U.S., and the most successful.

There are two reasons for this, according to Florida monk expert Pranty: First, unlike every other parrot in the world, monks are not dependent on nest cavities for breeding. They build their own. Second: Perhaps because of these nests, in which they sleep year-round, monks are able to survive colder temperatures than most parrots.

Mark Bittner, unofficial caretaker of San Francisco's cherry-headed conures, feeds some of the semi-tame flock. A documentary about the birds will be released this fall. (Photo courtesy of Mark Bittner.)

Because all the other naturalized parrots are cavity nesters and cavities are scarce, it is believed that only about 20 percent of them nest and breed every year, Pranty says. Monks, on the other hand, can build their massive, multi-chambered twig-and-stick edifices in trees, telephone towers, fire escapes, stadium lights and all manner of natural and man-made structures. They are not obliged to depend on already existing nests.

Monk nests are composed of multiple chambers, each occupied by a nesting pair. When an entire colony roosts together in such a nest, the temperature stays significantly warmer than the air outside. This is how monks are thought to survive in Illinois, Connecticut and other inhospitably cold states where they are found in significant numbers.

In 1999 and 2000, Pranty conducted the Florida Monk Parakeet Survey and Mapping Project, during which he attempted, with the help of volunteers, to find and map monk parakeet nests in Florida. In all, the project found and mapped 1,042 nests occupied by an estimated 3,800 birds. However, Pranty says, he is certain that there are at least 10,000 monks in Florida, and that is a conservative estimate.

"There were some places, in Miami, St. Pete, Ft. Lauderdale, where there were more nests than we were able to count," says Pranty. "Where you could drive down every other street and find a nest. One of the problems in those places is that there are people who raid the nests for the pet trade, and for that reason, the birders in those areas will not tell anyone where the nests are. Friends of mine won't even tell me. They're afraid of the nest raiders, and they're afraid that someone from a state agency might try to eradicate them."

Here today...
Not all natura