A Flock of Green Parrots Have Been Spotted

I saw them once along time ago it was right after I asked God for a sign it really freaked me out.

Are these the ancestors of the Parrots that escaped from the Zoo years ago ? 40 ! Awesome .

Far out. Let's hope we'll see the Mission Canyon monkey troupe again.

Roger, what did you decide? Was it good or bad?

If you saw 40 they definitely are not the flock of Lilac-crowned Amazons that have been here since the '70's. They were at our neighbors today off of East Alamar and have been on our street daily for the last couple of weeks checking the ripening of our Magnolia street tree seed pods. The flock is the lowest I've seen it, at 7 currently, since we first started having them here in the mid '80's. As soon as there's an abundance of ripe pods they'll be here twice daily until at least December. I posted a couple of videos on You Tube 2 or 3 years ago when the flock was at 11 and last year it was down to 9. They only have a couple of babies a year and the mortality rate has been high.

I have never seen any around here. I saw a flock over Arcadia, CA about 10 years ago - and another, much larger flock in Orange, CA about 4 years ago. Very noisy birds! I'd rather not have them around (colorful or not).
I was told that they were the descendants of birds that were set free by firefighters when a pet shop burned years ago in the L.A.. area.

article on CA parrot flocks, it's in lower left hand. "More readers want to know -- Where did hte parrots come from?" http://californiaparrots.us/articles_main.html

When my mom was growing up (b. 1912) Esther Hammond had a flock of Macaws at Bonnymede, they flew all over Montecito. Mom said you could hear them coming. Mom, always a bird lover, was thrilled with them.

Here's a snippet from an interesting article found on the Santa Barbara Bird Farm website (Feb. 2015) titled "Wild Parrots of Santa Barbara": fire and release story for the Santa Barbara flock is not correct, we did not release any birds during the fire and also did not have amazons at that time. The wild parrots that make up our flock, primarily Lilac Crowned Amazons were here and well established in 1975 when we relocated the bird farm to its current location. At that time there were seven members to the flock. This number has fluctuated from a maximum of seventeen back in the early 80s and now down to thirteen. Through the years the challenge to their existence has been demonstrated with a low of only 6 birds in 2002. " /////////Lots more info in the article...fun read if you are so inclined...

Haven't there been a few different groupings of wild parrots around Santa Barbara? We used to play tennis at Westmont back in the late 70s and I would see and hear parrots flying overhead. My tennis pals thought I was silly, making it all up as I would point skyward and say, "Look! Parrots!" But then, a few years into the 80s I happened to see parrots roosting late in the day in the eucalyptus at UPS out in Goleta (southern end of Pine Ave). I would then try to "track" those parrots and sometimes watch them fly east in the morning and then back to Goleta in the evening. There was a flock out in Montecito by Cowles Rd. People knew about those parrots. Are they still there? For a while we'd see parrots at the cliffs across from Hendry's Beach, too. Haven't seen them in years. Several times I watched as a Cockatiel tried to become a part of the Hendry's Beach flock. The parrots would tolerate him/her, but that poor Cockatiel was always made to sit apart from the rest of the birds. In recent decades I had two parrots that found me by coming into my yard: a Cockatiel and an Eastern rosella. I do love birds, but advocate that they never be kept as pets (the exception being chickens and ducks). Parrots need to fly free, to forage as they must and to be able to find mates. Parrots should not be caged. It is not a happy life for them, no matter what their loving owners may believe.

While I was on a roof working on APS, I looked out and saw 4 parrots flying to another houses roof. I used to see a larger group around montecito and the bird refuge but havent been to the area in awhile. They are still around.

The flock in San Roque is the same one from the '70's and still roost at Westmont and the furthest west they have been reported is Highway 154. Also they are now all presumed Lilac-crowns as the last known hybrid from the Double Yellow Headed Amazon who led the flock from the '80's to 1999, died in 2013. I have a rare photo of him on the power pole next to our D/W. They are all thought to be wild as the DYH was the only one to ever show contact with humans. They are not countable as wild here yet by the ABA or CBRC due to the past hybridization.