While in the summer the flock of green Aratinga/Conures/Parakeets with red
foreheads are seen and heard loudly squaking regularly near or in Seward
Park, I've heard various reports of them being seen in the winter in the
north end of Seattle or maybe in the county north of the city limits. The
movement pattern is interesting, but unsurprising for the non-breeding
season. I expect that they move around whenever the food is better
somewhere else. As many of you may know, they are among the most
intelligent birds and are long-lived, I presume, to pass on information to
the flock, so I expect they know where the food is over the non-breeding
season better than almost any flock of birds in the Seattle area. The flock
has been around for decades. I first saw them at Seward in the early to
late 70"s. As such long lived birds, it is possible that some are the same
birds I saw in the 70's.

Has anyone seen nests (or active nest holes)? I don't know that I've heard
of reports of their nests. From the web search I just did I expect they are
hole nesters like most members of their genus

Thanks for the, at least tentative, IDs and the anecdotes. The one food I
noted them eating at Seward Park was green cottonwood fruits.

I once saw pictures of numerous almost identical parakeets from S. and
Central America that were of different species, so it is no surprise that it
may be tricky to verify the exact species.

For those who want to see them in the summer, the spot I've most frequently
seen them is along the internal loop road that you can drive at the first
parking lot (for shelter 3 and the bathroom building), at the top of the
large Douglas-fir snag between the parking lot and the loop road.

Stewart Wechsler
Seattle

-----Original Message-----
From: Eugene and Nancy Hunn [mailto:enhunn323 at comcast.net]
Sent: Wednesday, February 01, 2006 6:35 PM
To: Stewart Wechsler; Ian Paulsen
Cc: tweeters at u.washington.edu
Subject: Re: [Tweeters] Mitred Conure/Parakeet id + Seward (seattle) Conure
ID


Tweets,



Some years ago Dennis Paulson observered two adults with two young at his
feeders in Seattle's Maple Leaf district. As I recall he identified them at
that time as "Crimson-fronted Parakeets" (Aratinga finschi), which is a
species normally residenty from se Nicaragua to western Panama. We reported
flocks of up to 16 Aratingas seen on the Seattle CBC as this species in
2000, but the following year changed that identification on Dennis's
recommendation to "Scarlet-fronted Parakeet" (Aratinga wagleri) or hybrids
of A. wagleri and the "Mitred Parakeet" (= "Mitred Conure," Aratinga
mitrata), both very similar to A. finschi but of Andean origin.



By the way, the famous parrots of Telegraph Hill in San Francisco (Mark
Bittner's _Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill_) are mostly "Cherry-headed
Conures" (a.k.a. "Red-masked Parakeets," Aratinga erythrogens) though at
least one female Mitred Conure is in the flock and appears to be breeding
with the others.



They're all medium-sized, long-tailed mostly green parakeets with variable
amounts of red about the head.



It seemed for a while that the Maple Leaf birds might be the same as the
Seward Park birds, simply moving around seasonally, but that remains to be
demonstrated.



Gene Hunn.


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