Parrots Living Wild in American Cities

Red-crowned amazon in Palm Beach FLFrom San Francisco to South Florida, populations of nonnative parrots—some imperiled in their tropical homelands—are thriving in U.S. cities and suburbs

ON A STEAMY spring morning, Joe Barros and Paul Bithorn of the Tropical Audubon Society were driving around Miami with their windows down, listening for telltale squawks. Winding through golf courses, residential streets and downtown parks, the expert birders were searching for parrots, and they found them all over the city: yellow-chevroned parakeets crowding a backyard feeder, mitred parakeets preening in a melaleuca tree, a colorful flock of Amazons—lilac-crowned, yellow-headed and orange-winged parrots—on power lines, even a pair of blue-and-yellow macaws that flew into a nest in a dead royal palm. In all, Barros and Bithorn spotted 16 species of parrots before sundown, a number that would be difficult for a birder to top anywhere on the planet.

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Wild return for shot-down cockatoo

FREE AS A BIRD: Sam was released yesterday after recovering from a slug gun wound.NOT much could ruffle Sam's feathers yesterday when he returned to the wild almost seven weeks after he was shot in Queens Park.

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Get up close and personal with Australian budgies at Franklin Park Zoo

A pair of budgies make short work of a stick full of seeds held out by a visitor to the Franklin Park Zoo on Wednesday. The yellow and green parakeet swooped down from its perch to land on the seed-coated stick. A second later, half a dozen more followed, bending the wooden stick with their weight and nibbling just inches away from the fingers of curator Fred Beall.

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Drunken parrots falling from sky

Parrots intoxicated by a mystery substance are dropping out of the sky near Darwin.

Red-collared lorikeets range from The Kimberly coast to the western margins of the Gulf of Carpentaria (Credit: Mitch Reardon)

SEEMINGLY DRUNKEN AND HUNGOVER parrots are dropping out of the sky in the Northern Territory and experts are at a loss to explain why.

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Parrot Bill Not Seen As Bird-Brained

Monk parakeets at Green-Wood Cemetery. Image by Jeremy SetoSome state legislators and activists are working together to gain protected status for a popular species of parrot that is native to South America and has made a home for itself here in Queens.

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