[meteorite-list] OFF TOPIC - Unusual

From: David Freeman <dfreeman_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu Apr 22 10:29:53 2004
Message-ID: <3F5E8717.10804_at_fascination.com>

Dear Michael and List;
So, what is the bag limit and do they taste like chicken?
I have heard of black birds in a pie but parrots in a birthday cake?

Thank you all that wished me happy youthful five-Oh,

Yours truly,
Dave Freeman

Michael L Blood wrote:

>WARNING: This is off topic, so, some/many of you may wish to hit
>your delete button.
>
> Yesterday (Sept. 8) a very unusual occurrence took place in my
>yard: A flock of a dozen parrots came to eat my leftover sunflower
>seeds!
> When I went out to pick up the paper at about 8 AM I was alerted
>when a neighbor lady called out to me, "Mr. Blood, there are parrots in
>your sunflowers!" And, to my delight and amazement, there were,
>indeed, parrots feeding off the Russian Giant Sunflowers! I had left
>most of them to dry in the sun, even though the birds had been eating
>themS(. but I had surely never seen parrots doing so.
> In fact, there were twelve of them ­ an entire flock. And
>beautiful they were, indeed. Most amazing, they were clearly
>all the same species.
> I grabbed my camera and went out to get some photos. You can see
>most of the photos I captured of these beautiful creatures at:
>
>http://community.webshots.com/album/89632975MfUNTL
>
>(Particularly nice are photos # P16 & P15)
>
> I later researched the species. They had beautiful blue
>heads, orangish top beak and near black bottom beak with
>a little blue in their underwing and red in the underside of
>some of their tail feathers. Their legs and feet were flesh
>colored and when I later examined their photos closely, I
>could see no bands on any of their legs, indicating they likely
>escaped bird importers in the Tiajuana area and/or have
>bread in the wilds of this area. They turned out to be Sharp-tailed
>Conures (Aratinga acuticaudata) which are native to Brazil,
>Bolivia, Uruguay and Argentina. So, they are clearly an escaped
>flock that have naturalized in the area.
> It is very rare to see parrot flocks in San Diego, but one
>hears of them appearing here & there on occasion. Usually,
>however, such flocks are reported to contain mixed species
>of parrots, presumably attracted to their own kind having
>escaped captivity individually. This is the only occurrence
>I have been aware of where an entire flock was the same
>species.
> In any event, I will certainly be planting more sunflowers
>next year!
> Best wishes, Michael
>
>
>
>
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Received on Tue 09 Sep 2003 10:06:15 PM PDT