Parrots Over Long Beach

Parrots Over Long Beach April 26, 2017

Wild-Parrot-Communion

This morning as I got up to make my coffee I heard the now familiar joyful squawking that told me the parrots are visiting the neighborhood. We live in Long Beach’s Alamitos Beach neighborhood. Our local feral colony actually live in Belmont Shore the next neighborhood over. But they like to roam a little. And on some rough cycle they come around our neck of the woods every three or four or five days.

I’m not positive I’d been quite as enthusiastic about them if they were nesting next to me. They are loud. And for pretty things, their loud is, well, a squawk. And I know others dislike them, or their presence, which really amounts to the same thing, because they’re an invasive species. For me they’re a fact of life here in Long Beach. And, like those other transplants here the eucalyptus and the palm, a ubiquitous symbol of our home. And, I love ’em.

Of course there is that question of displacement. Interestingly, according to Kimball Garrett who studied the parrots of the Los Angeles area and published a report in 1997, in fact nearly all the food sources that parrots consume are from introduced plants. Similarly, their water sources are mostly from human constructed sites, again, with no necessary competition with indigenous birds. And, they are the prey for local critters, as well, sort of an introduced food supply for falcons and hawks, and their eggs are eaten by all sorts of local animals. So, the main problem for folk really is they are noisy.

There are numerous stories of how parrots were introduced into the area. Some make a lot of sense, escaped pets, others of varying sorts of unlikely. Among my favorites is about the source of the parrots in Pasadena. It is said there was a fire and a pet store owner released sixty-five or more birds rather than let them be burned. Some claim our parakeets are descendants of those birds.

Our own parrots, well, parakeets, have been in the area since the 1980s.

According to the California Parrot Project there are some thirteen species of parrots found in California. And all of them in the greater Los Angeles area. Our local parrots are most all mitred parakeets, native to South America. The best estimate is there are a couple of hundred of them frolicking in our neighborhood.

Anyway, blessing upon blessing I’ve been able to sip my morning coffee sitting on my condo balcony watching the parakeets frolic.

What can I say? Another day in paradise…

Okay, lovely. And what they actually sound like as they play around here…

Life in Long Beach…


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