Look who stopped by in my front yard. It is a peach-faced lovebird.I love these guys. They are so noisy though. I can hear their distinctive bird squawk when I am in my house. I often go out and watch them or look at them through my windows.
These birds are small parrots that are native to Southwest Africa. Yes, Africa, not Arizona.
Based on accidental cage releases, the birds are surviving and apparently thriving.
These birds have actually adapted fairly well to the desert area in the Phoenix metropolitan area and there are quite a few of them around. They love eating the chilean mesquite beans, which you can see are laying on the grass around the bird, and they like hanging out in my big, green, leafy Chilean mesquite trees.
14 comments:
What a lucky Julie! ;)
Fabulous shot and this friend is really cute!
Léia :)
Back in So Fla we have a similar Parrot. They showed up many years ago and have been breeding like crazy.
This parrot looks like it has a sense of humor, like it's sharing a good joke with you.
Oh how fortunate you are to see these birds in your yard Julie! I think he is posing for you. When I lived in Sarasota, there were wild parakeets everywhere and they too made a lot of noise.
Great shot Julie. I have a flock of these fellows hanging out near my house about a year ago. They would show up in the early evening about the time the lawn sprinklers would start and then they would play in the water. I tried, but was never successful at getting a picture. I haven't seen them this year.
I lived in San Francisco for six years and there you could see a lot of wild parrots in some parts of the city. There was actually a movie about them, pretty big in SF but I don't know if it showed somewhere else in US: "The wild parrots of Telegraph Hill".
Oh, he saw you all right. He looks like he's grinning about all the food around him. It's interesting how animals adapt isn't it?
Nice photo Julie. We have parakeets here in the UK that have escaped or been released and have quite successfully survived and bred. I saw one in churchyard perhaps 500 yards from where I am writing this. At first I could not believe it but I got a bad picture on my mobile and sure enough there it was.
I had one in my backyard up here in Prescott once, I don't think they would care for winter here. Pretty shot.
Cute, but as you say, noisy. In South Florida there has been an invasion of little screeching green parrots. They were fun at first; now they have become a real pain!
Of course that's nothing compared to the pythons multiplying by the hundreds in the Everglades!
I really love these noisy little parrots. They make their nests in our cacti.
At first I thought 'wait a minute that bird is not native', then read the rest of your post. We have a quaker parrot, another bird that apparently can do quite well in the states.
You are lucky to have them in your yard... they love sunflower seeds too.
You are so lucky to have wild ones that come to visit you!
:)
candy
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