The Dewdrop World

Meanderings through the seasons...

Horned Lark: Bolsa Chica Ecological Reserve (June 2021)

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“IT HAS BEEN CALLED “the most common bird you never heard of.” The Horned Lark breeds on mountaintops, in low deserts, and all across the American prairie. In winter, it frequents plains, shores, and farm fields. And unlike most New World birds, it ranges widely in Eurasia. Yet most ordinary folk—normal people, nonbirders—just don’t know the bird. Horned Larks don’t come to birdfeeders. They eschew parks and neighborhoods. And they’re flighty, often staying hundreds of feet ahead of human intruders upon their domain. Although the act of simply seeing a Horned Lark requires little effort, the feat of correctly identifying one is something of an accomplishment. The Horned Lark is a birder’s bird. A huge part of the experience of birding is the thrill of discovery. Keep at it for a while, and you might register a bona fide ornithological discovery: a first nesting record for your state or province, for example, or a new field mark for separating one avian species from another. The vast majority of your discoveries, though, will be entirely personal: realizing that there are owls on your property, or that eagles migrate over your neighborhood each year, or that thousands of Horned Larks swarm the pastures, cornfields, and waste places around the outskirts of town. Eventually and inevitably, the birder comes to take the Horned Lark for granted. Once you know they’re there, Horned Larks are everywhere. Objectively speaking, they’re as beautiful as when you first encountered them, with their ornate facial markings and tinkling call notes, rising up in front of you. But they become frankly commonplace after a while. Perhaps, but there is something else: Years, even decades, after our first encounter with the species, it is an inspiration. We never forget that initial wonder, that moment of awareness that this world of ours is full of undiscovered wonders and blessings.”

How to Know the Birds: The Art and Adventure of Birding by Ted Floyd




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The Great-Horned Owl- June 2021

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I cried when I saw my first owl.

It was our second attempt to find her. We heard that a great-horned owl had made a nest at the LA Arboretum. When we asked the first day, we were given very detailed and careful instructions of how to find the owl. We looked so hard, but no luck. We heard from others that the fledglings had left the nest and that owls destroy their nests after one use. WE had no idea if this was true or not, but we figured we were too little, too late. 

Back the next day--hot on the trail of the Scaly-Breasted Munia-- we were told that the owls had not left. In fact, a photographer had been there that very morning to capture the owls. So, we raced off--hoping against hope. 

This from Hansen's Field Guide to Birds of the Sierra Nevada:

Lord of the night. Roosting in seclusion, deep within shaded forests or sheltered in a cranny high on a cliff face, this sturdy, full body, and fearsome predator possesses the erect ears and focus glare of an enormous cat. Daylight elucidates a large, motionless form the color and pattern of autumn wood. The bane of the songbird world; uproarious commotion and agitated notes erupt upon the disclosure of this ominous carnivore. Face set within a slowly swiveling turret, it’s stares down through narrow eyes of sleepy in difference. This look of calm and passivity is deceptive, for when dusk settles, this powerful figure moves forth into darkness to seize and spirit away prey, be it the size and gravity of a cat, or the insignificance of an annoying bird to hurls insert insults by day.

++

My first owl, nothing could have prepared me for the sight of her! Hansen describes it so beautifully. When she opened her eyes-- with great indifference looking down at us, I was surprised to feel tears spilling down my cheeks... I am not sure if I imagined it, but I think she also unfurls a dark foot.... from beneath a thick hem of feathers...

What a majestic and awesome bird!

This all reminded me of my favorite book on owls, Wesley the Owl. I loved meeting the author when she visited our bookclub at Caltech.

My next dream is to see a baby barn owl!

From the Hidden Life of Owls:

“INSIGHTS FROM AN OWL › Keep only what is useful. Regurgitate the rest. › Be patient. Eventually something will move. › Learn through play. › Only one out of four or five tries yields a mouse. Never give up. › Accept help when it is offered. › Adapt to stay resilient. › Travel every four to six months. › Take time to sit and observe. › Death is a necessary ingredient in life. Accept the transformation. › Never foul your own nest. › Parenthood is temporary. › The Great Gray Owl does not see what the Great Horned Owl sees. Perspective is everything. › Withhold judgment. Nature does not take sides. › Where you live is not nearly as important as where you are alive.”

— The Hidden Lives of Owls: The Science and Spirit of Nature's Most Elusive Birds by Leigh Calvez

See Brain Pickings: Of Owls and Roses: Mary Oliver on Happiness, Terror, and the Sublime Interconnectedness of Life
“The world where the owl is endlessly hungry and endlessly on the hunt is the world in which I live too. There is only one world.”

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Ventura Settling Ponds: Summer

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The Ventura Settling Ponds are located just north of Surfer's knoll in Ventura, our favorite beach in LA. The 20-acre site is called the settling ponds because the manmade beds collect treated water discharged from an adjacent wastewater plant.

The discharged water flows through three storage ponds named Snoopy, Lucy and, because of its shape, Bone. Eventually, the water seeps into the Santa Clara River estuary. 

There is an ominous chain-link fence that you pass through to enter the site. If not for the Birders Welcome sign, I probably would have hesitated to enter since you feel like you are trespassing on the facility! The smell doesn't help either. 

We arrived early in the morning on June 13, 2021. 

We were hoping to catch a glimpse of the Yellow-breasted Chat. With clear instructions and a map from my sister, we set off down the sandy path.

The air was filled with birdsong! The solemn beauty reminded me of the serene Camargue region in France, my favorite birding spot in the world. 

Of course, there were no flamingos in Ventura. And we did not see the Chat nor could we find the marsh wren.

But we saw these below (Yellow Warbler and Tree Swallow were lifers)

Mallard
Pied-billed Grebe
American Coot
Western Gull
Least Tern
Brown Pelican
White Pelican
Great Blue Heron
Snowy Egret
Black-crowned Night-Heron
Turkey Vulture
Black Phoebe
American Crow
Tree Swallow
Barn Swallow
Bushtit
European Starling
House Finch
Lesser Goldfinch
American Goldfinch
Song Sparrow
California Towhee
Spotted Towhee
Great-tailed Grackle
Yellow Warbler
Anna's Hummingbird
Allen's Hummingbird
Dark-eyed Junco
Red-winged Blackbird
Double-crested Cormorant
Bewick's Wren

 

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I have become really fond of swallows lately. Like a painting in the fog.

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197011599_10158009804320108_8862663662246559706_nThe fog made for some magical pictures--here a double-crested cormorant, which I called double breasted cormorant until Liz corrected me. 

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Another recent favorite are the grackles... Ever since Texas....

Pictures became more vivid when we went back after the fog burned off around 2pm.

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Least Terns

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We saw a glorious snowy egret--look at those golden slippers!
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IMG_4141 (1)The Black-crowned Night-Heron. Dai calls him the "old man of the pond."

Juvenile below


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Merlin says Mallard, but she seemed big for a mallard.IMG_4141 (1)

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193214627_10158010333485108_90536897521733470_nSpotted Towhee

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193214627_10158010333485108_90536897521733470_nI hated to leave you, my love! Puppy in the Window. 

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THE BIRDS: JUNE IS FOR JUNCOS

 

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First published in Entropy June 2021

Cordoba, in southern Spain, is famous for its Fiesta de los Patios. The ultimate battle of the blossoms, the festival is held every May, when people travel to Andalucía from all over to watch locals competing to outdo each other for the most over-the-top, flower-filled patio. There are ferns and tree palms growing wildly alongside green leaf-climbers and flowering trees; with every conceivable wall space occupied by hanging terracotta pots overflowing with orange and red and pink geraniums. And, in the middle of this flowery splendor, fountains murmur and Spanish guitarists are brought in to serenade the judges. Of course, wine is involved.

Could paradise be an Andalucían patio?

Returning to California, I decided to put up some geranium-filled terracotta pots of my own. Sure, I only put up five, but it might have been the best idea I ever had.

2.

If not for the stretched-out days of Covid, I probably wouldn’t have noticed the two dark-eyed juncos who began intently flying back and forth into one of our hanging pots. In and out a hundred times a day, I wondered what was going on? One day in early June, while watering the flowers, a dark-eyed junco zoomed out of the pot and situated herself on a tree branch and proceeded to chirp at me for thirty minutes. Was I imagining that she looked mad? My mom would say, she was “madder than a wet hen.” All puffed up like a fugu fish too!

Note to self: Check pot in morning. Could there be a nest?

Sure enough, the next day I found a nest in the pot with three speckled, pale blue eggs.

Internet search: Incubation 11-13 days. Young: Both parents feed the nestlings.

After that, every time I passed the pot, I’d peer in at the momma junco sitting on top of her eggs. She looked sweetly protective. And, proud! I could see why; for the nest was a marvel!

I once discovered a perfect little bird’s nest on the ground, when I was a child. It was just lying in the wet grass. I brought it home, enchanted that birds could create such intricate and beautiful nests.

Serious birders will talk about their first bird memory, which is sometimes also their spark bird—the one that set off a lifetime of subsequent birding, something they also talk about. My own earliest bird memory was seeing a brilliant blue jay in a sycamore tree in an arroyo near my childhood home in Los Angeles. It was autumn, and the tree shimmered golden in the afternoon sunshine. I vividly recall being stopped in my tracks by its beauty.

But what was that off-putting sound? Looking up, I saw a blue jay squawking and carrying on about something.

It was not long after that when I found the beautiful nest in the wet grass.

3.

From the Cornell Lab of Ornithology:

NEST DESCRIPTION
Females build the nests, using her beak to weave together materials and her body to give the nest its shape. Nests can be quite variable depending on where they are built. Sometimes ground nests get just a fine lining of grasses or pine needles. Other nests may be built on a foundation of twigs, leaves and moss, then lined with grasses, ferns, rootlets, hair, and fine pieces of moss. The nests usually take 3-7 days to build, and when finished they are 3-5.5 inches across, with an inner diameter of 2.4-2.8 inches and depth of 1.6-2.8 inches. It’s rare for a junco to reuse a nest.

NESTING FACTS
Clutch Size: 3-6 eggs
Number of Broods: 1-3 broods
Egg Length: 0.8in (1.9-2.1 cm)
Egg Width: 0.6in (1.5-1.6 cm)
Incubation Period: 12-13 days
Nestling Period: 10-13 days
Egg Description: White, gray, pale bluish white, or pale-greenish white speckled with brown, gray and green. Occasionally unmarked.
Condition at Hatching: Naked except for dark gray down on the back, eyes closed, clumsy.

4.

Right on schedule, the eggs hatched in the third week of June. I read that junco hatchlings are blind and feather-less. They looked utterly helpless. And they were gooey for days. I knew this because by then I had created my own perch, on a step ladder that I placed at a comfortable distance from the nest.

At first, I was unable to verify all three were alive, since I didn’t want to get too close. But I knew that one was definitely alive since it was such a drama queen! Chirping nonstop with a bright yellow gape looking like it was on fire with bright red outlines. It was impossible to ignore.

This was the start of nonstop work for the parents. Both the mother and the father, working in tandem, spent their days gathering food and feeding the chicks. At first only one baby (aka “Drama Queen”) actively had its mouth open; though all three seem to be alive, from what I can see from my ladder-perch.

When not gathering food, the father spent his time guarding perimeter. If we entered the area, he would start his nonstop barking. Yes, we were being warned.

Within forty-eight hours, two of the junco babies became very active. Their eyes wide open, they were already sprouting feathers. That is when things started really moving. Like a busy runway at LAX, the pot was a constant hum of inbound and outbound junco parents. The hatchlings became extremely demanding. Resembling tiny pitcher plants in the rainforest collecting rainwater, their mouths were perfect funnels for eating. Gapes brightly colored yellow—like someone had taken a highlighter pen to outline them for easy night feeding. And the little chowhounds had begun to chirp incessantly. To my ears, they sounded like crickets, completely taking over the soundscape in our backyard.

5.

In Japan, where I lived for most of my adult life, I had become sensitive to soundscapes. My friends were always attentive to the frogs’ singing in the paddies and the crickets’ music at night. The sound of the cicadas, like rain. Seasonal phenomena was a constant topic of conversation.

I’d been living in Tokyo about ten years, when a friend’s father decided to perform a little experiment on me. Arriving at their home in suburban Mejirodai one autumn evening, he waved my friend away, telling her: “I want to have a little chat with Leanne-san.” Sitting down on the sofa across from him, he poured me a cup of tea, and we talked about the coming of autumn for maybe twenty minutes, when he suddenly clasped his hand together in delight–with what could only be described as a childlike gleam in his eyes– and said, “Don’t you hear something?”

I was puzzled by this sudden turn of events. I sat quietly for a moment, listening– and then shook my head, no.

He was incredulous (but I couldn’t help but feel he also looked quite pleased with himself) and said: “Are you telling me that you have noticed nothing unusual here this evening?” He cupped his hand around his right ear as if making to try and hear a faint sound.

When I shook my head again, he giddily pulled out a small bamboo cage from under his chair. I immediately realized that he had a bell cricket in there. In fact, the cricket was chirping quite loudly!

How on earth had I missed it?

In English we don’t really have the vocabulary to evoke the ringing, chirping and clicking sounds of all the autumnal “insects voices” (虫の声). We also don’t really have common expressions for our human reactions to the chorus of insects (虫の合唱), the crying of the bell crickets (鈴虫が鳴く), the cicada rains (蝉しぐれ) etc…

My friend’s father ended his experiment, wondering aloud whether I would someday hear the beauty of the autumn insects and appreciate the rain-like sound of the cicadas in summer, once I had lived long enough in Japan.

I also wondered.

As a child in Los Angeles, I used to keep my windows open on warm nights to listen to the peaceful sound of the sprinklers and hear the crickets in the wet grass.

But what happened to those crickets anyway?

Not only do I distinctly remember the chorus of crickets, but there were also armies of ants. We had flies that were so pesty we kept swatters out all summer long. We also avoided eating outside on warm nights because of the way they swarmed. Bees too. I remember frogs and uncountable numbers of worms and snails. Fast forward forty years. Now, living in Pasadena, I wondered what had happened to them to my husband “Don’t you remember summers with swarms of gnats? And flies buzzing constantly? And what about the bugs we used to get in our eyes bicycling around town as kids?” He said it was the same in Ohio. And there were mosquitoes too, he said. It felt strange that no one noticed that an army of bugs had disappeared completely.

6.

From The Field Guide to Dumb Birds of North America, by Matt Kracht
Dork-eye Junco

Sometimes described as attractive, or even “flashy”, this twerp is actually just another grey American sparrow. But this doesn’t stop it from flitting to and from all over the forest floors, making its loud, painfully high-pitched trill, and scratching around for food with its feet.

The male’s song is a loud trill of the same note, repeated up to 23 times. It can last for several seconds and is irritating enough to be heard from hundreds of feet away.

Color: Boring. It’s got a white under-belly, as if anyone cares.

7.

“June gloom” is the name Angelenos give to the band of low clouds and fog that brings cloudy, overcast mornings to the city, starting as early May and sometimes continuing all the way into July.

In Japan, when I had first learned that people considered the long monsoon rains of June to be a “fifth season,” I had understood immediately, for in Los Angeles, we also have a fifth season. June Gloom. And last year, it was going strong.

I wondered if the juncos liked the cool, cloudy mornings. The nestling period would be over soon, and so I waited.

It was on July 2nd. I had gotten a late start to get outside to my viewing ladder.

(By then, we had installed a camera so we could better protect them from predatory raccoons and hawks).

As soon as I opened the back door that day, I knew immediately the junco family was gone. There was a heavy silence, causing me to rush over to nest. It was empty. But when I looked again, I noticed the one dead chick.

Like an angel, its wings were tucked neatly at side.

It was my first big cry in many years.

My husband rushed outside. Had he seen me crying on the camera? He said no footage had been caught of their flying away, so at least we knew the dastardly raccoon did not get them. (He always sets the camera off).

I tried to explain to my husband how alienated from nature I have felt in California—which is ironic given how we are surrounded by the natural world here. But compared to Japan, where the changing seasons had been such a part of communal life, I felt isolated. My husband suggested we bury the chick with full honors under the bird bath. And so, we wrapped it in a handkerchief from Japan for burial.

We talked about how these bizarre Covid times had made the delicacy and the force of nature feel more exquisite. And also more urgent. I thought of what the poet Wendell Berry meant when he wrote of the peace of wild things, and the presence and grace of the world.

8.

The Peace of Wild Things
by Wendell Berry

When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

9.

Until the pandemic, I had always considering myself to be a city person. I never thought much about ecological issues until I came back to the US in mid-life. To be sure, Japan was not perfect in terms of the environment–not by any means. But I think it is safe to say that in Japan nature is not held as “standing reserve.” Rather than seen merely as a resource to be used, nature and the seasons are something to which people in Japan strive to be attuned. Deep listening is an especially humbling act, as the ephemeral and transient quality of sound demands attention and focus.

In Tochigi, the city where I lived, there was the custom of water harps. A Japanese invention, suikinkutsu 水琴窟 are often found in traditional Japanese gardens, especially in tea ceremony gardens. Made by burying an inverted terracotta bowl with a small hole in the top into the ground, water then drips into the bowl from the top creating a pleasant sound, similar to a Japanese zither, or koto 琴, from which the suikinkutsu derives its name.

Having never been bombed during the war, Tochigi has many historic buildings and gardens. It is filled with scenic splendor. And the idea behind installing these water harps around town was to get visitors –and locals alike– to stop for a moment in their busy day and engage in mindful listening. To allow for a meditative pausing to be able to more fully appreciate the beauty of the town.

I always loved watching the people stopping to listen to the music of the world.

During the pandemic, I guess I became a kind of accidental birder. Life slowed down, with the relentless call to “produce” echoing more hollowly. With abundant time at home, I started to become familiar with my critter neighbors.

How could I have not noticed them before?

My husband calls the bird world a “parallel universe.” It’s out there, pulsing with music and activity, mostly oblivious to us. But we can take fleeting journeys into their world. Listening to their musical conversations, we can find comfort in a world so rich with creation and life.

* * *

Leanne Ogasawara is a frequent contributor to Entropy. She has worked as a translator from the Japanese for over twenty years. Her translation work has included academic translation, poetry, philosophy, documentary film, and poetry. Her creative writing has appeared in Gulf Coast Journal, the Kyoto Journal, River Teeth/Beautiful Things, Hedgehog Review, Entropy, the Dublin Review of Books, and forthcoming in Pleiades Magazine. She has a monthly column at the science and arts blog 3 Quarks Daily. Her short story “Bare Bones” won the 2020 Calvino Prize, judged by Joyce Carol Oates.

featured photo by Leanne Ogasawara

 

MY "SPANISH" PATIO

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MOMMY AND DADDY GOING IN AND OUT A MILLION TIMES A DAY!

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SCREAMING EVERY TIME WE BREACH THE NEST PERIMETER (IE OUR WHOLE BACKYARD!!(

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THE PERFECT NEST & A PROTECTIVE MOMMA

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BABIES! AND THE WORK BEGINS...

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Leanne Ogasawara has worked as a translator from the Japanese for over twenty years. Her translation work has included academic translation, poetry, philosophy, documentary film, and poetry. Her creative writing has appeared in Gulf Coast Journal, the Kyoto Journal, River Teeth/Beautiful Things, Hedgehog Review, Entropy, the Dublin Review of Books, and forthcoming in Pleiades Magazine. She has a monthly column at the science and arts blog 3 Quarks Daily. Her short story “Bare Bones” won the 2020 Calvino Prize, judged by Joyce Carol Oates.

Leanne

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Parrots of Pasadena

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Like a lot of people, I was surprised to find parrots in Pasadena.

Unlike the peacocks, it isn’t clear how Pasadena got its huge flocks of parrots. Some say it happened when a pet store caught fire and the animals got loose. But that story is not backed up with any evidence that I've found.

Parrots and peacocks on the loose? Others think they just ended up in the area—flown off course?

Like the red-whiskered bulbuls, they are newcomers whose story is not known.

Liz shared this fantastic article about Pasadena's red-crowned parrots the other day, Pasadena's Screaming Parrots Are Super Annoying But May Save Their Species From Extinction.

Super annoying? I think not!

How about nonstop deafeningly loud police helicopters hovering over your house every day? Or nonstop leaf blowers? Or firecrackers?

The parrots are like a symphony orchestra compared to those menaces. 

Fun Fact from Article:Fun fact:

A group of parrots is called a "pandemonium," which is actually the perfect description for how crazy -- and crazy-making -- these birds can be. Prepare your ears (and we suggest headphones if you're at work right now) for the video below.

Following a link to a second article, Creating an 'Urban Ark' for Endangered Species in Los Angeles
Earth Focus, I learned that the species I see the most often are from the Amazon.

Amazona viridigenalis.

Green-cheeked Amazon is what the scientific name means. Though everyone I know calls them red-crowned parrots.

Unnamed

From the article, I learned that:

In the 1970s and '80s, tens of thousands of chicks and adults were poached from the red-crowned parrots' original habitat in northeastern Mexico, in the states of Tamaulipas and San Luis Potosí, and brought to the United States to be sold in the pet trade. Because of the poaching and habitat loss from deforestation, their population dwindled in Mexico, and red-crowned parrots are now listed as an endangered species in Mexico and by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature.

In the meantime, however, their pet cousins in the United States escaped or were let go by owners who realized too late that wild-caught parrots make terrible pets, and that even tamed ones are demanding and noisy. Red-crowned parrots established sizable wild populations in Florida and California. In the Los Angeles area, there are about 2,000 to 3,000 individuals, a number that could at this point rival or exceed that of the remaining wild population in Mexico. Feeding largely on nonnative nut and fruit trees, red-crowned parrots started to breed and became a permanent feature of the greater Los Angeles landscape over the course of the 1980s and '90s. 

 

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In Pasadena, people complain about the racket they can make... and it is true, they are so loud! But like the author in the article, every single time I see a flock go screaming by, I feel a small sense of awe! Like her, sometimes I have even felt overcome with emotion when I see the huge flocks coming back to the trees to roost at night. The author makes a great case for making room for them too. 

There are so many reasons why Vienna is considered to be the most livable city --without a doubt it is the city I would choose if I could live anywhere in the world. And one of the greatest things about Vienna is that it is livable for all creatures--not just humans. Space is made for the birds and bees, foxes and rabbits. Boar. You name it. 

We want to protect the endemic species. But there might also be space for newcomers, especially if their habitats back "home" have been destroyed. Cities in particular could be perfect places to allow for this since cities have already pretty much displaced what came before. 

s.


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More photos by Chris below. Someday I would love to see a few more of LA's native parrots.

Naturalized Parrots of Southern California
Rose-ringed Parakeet (Conures) from tropical Africa and India

Lilac Crowned Parrot (Amazons) from the Pacific Coast of Mexico (vulnerable)

Red Crowned Parrot from NE Mexico (endangered)

Yellow Headed Parrot from southern Mexico down to Honduras (endangered)

Red Lored Parrot from the Caribbean Coast in southern Mexico down to Nicaragua

Red Masked Parakeet from Ecuador and Peru

Mitred Parakeet from Peru, Bolivia, and Argentina

Blue Crowned Parakeet from eastern Colombia all the way south to Argentina

Yellow Chevroned Parakeet from countries south of the Amazon River Basin

Nanday Parakeet from central South America

Blue (Turquoise) Fronted Parrot from central South America

Monk Parakeet from the Amazon Forest in east and central South America—also known as the Grey-headed or Quaker parakeet in the United State

 

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Babies getting bigger!

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Of course, I stupidly did not write down any dates. But I think it has been about a month since I saw the nine babies. Now two or three mommy birds are keeping together with only about a dozen babies--now much larger. 

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This below was taken about a month ago. Now they can fly and they have a beautiful set of feathers. 

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  • Summer/ Beginning of Summer 立夏(5/5) (10)
  • Summer/ Grain Full (小満)5/21 (7)
  • Summer/ Small Heat 小暑 (7/7) (2)
  • Summer/Large Heat 大暑 (7/23) (4)
  • Trees (4)
  • Wide World (2)
  • Winter/Beginning of Winter 立冬 (11/7) (3)
  • Winter/Big Snow (大雪): December 7 (1)
  • Winter/New Year (1)
  • Winter/Solstice (冬至): December 22 (1)
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