This morning at about 9:30 am I was driving north on 15th Ave NE. At 85th St. NE, a flock of about 8 birds flew across the road at treetop level from east to west, and my jaw dropped. They were parakeets, with rapid flight and long, pointed tails. I couldn't see any color. They were distinctly smaller than the birds that we used to see in our neighborhood in northeast Seattle in the 1990s and that may have been breeding around Seward Park. I identified those birds a bit tentatively as Scarlet-fronted Parakeets, Aratinga wagleri. But the birds I saw today definitely weren't that species, considerably smaller. It's possible they were Budgerigars, but I had the feeling that they were larger than Budgies. So anyone in that neighborhood should keep your eyes and ears open for something exotic.

Maybe global warming is happening faster than we think!

Dennis Paulson
Settle
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