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."

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