Probably the most popular birds in the Seward Park area of Seattle have, in
recent years, been the family of Mitered Conures.

A pair of these unusual birds had visited the sunflower-seed feeder at the
kitchen window of our Southeast Seattle home for nearly a year. They
brought their young ones, and sometimes they fought noisily and called back
and forth
to mates sittting in nearby trees. We saw as many as seven birds at a time.

Last fall, after the "kids", as my wife and I had come to call the young
ones, had been away for a few months, there was a great family reunion with
nine parrots circling and squawking in the sky above our house.

The kids flew off leaving "mom and pop" to pay the three or four times-a-day
visits to our offerings.

Then, about the middle of November, we notice only one bird coming. For a
few days--the smaller of the two, "mom" ate a little, then sat in a nearby
tree squealing in a way we'd never heard before. We feared the worst.

Even mom didn't come for a few days. We thought she might have left the area.
Then she reappeared with two of the young birds. They came for two days, and
then all were gone.

During the time of the big snow, we heard from one of our neighbors that a
parrot's body had been found several weeks earlier, about a block away.

A coopers hawk has been working the area. We've seen the predator in the trees,
and we've seen pegion feathers on the ground several times. We fear that "pop"
was taken by that hawk.

Parrots are excellent fliers, fast and maneuverable. I call them the F-14's
of the bird world. But "pop" had a bad eye and might have been blind-sided.

If anyone has seen the Seward Park parrots since early December, I would
appreciate hearing where and in what numbers. We know that one is dead. We
hope the other eight are still around and will be back next spring to
bring their bit of tropical color to our long summer evenings

Paul Meyer--paulmeyer at seanet.com