California’s 13 Naturalised Parrots
by Salvatore Angius
Salvatore Angius is the creator of Californiaflocks.org - a website dedicated to the awareness and better understanding of the diverse free-flying parrots which call California home.
It all began several years ago, as a last resort search attempt, to locate two of his escapee Illiger’s Macaws. Salvatore began tracking many of the local and distant wild parrot flocks in the hope of possibly locating his own birds, who he thought may join forces with one of the wild flocks.
As time progressed, Salvatore remained unsuccessful at finding his pets but found himself fascinated with the wild parrot world he discovered. Although he keeps a respectful distance while monitoring them, Salvatore feels a close bond with these parrot flocks and they have become substitute pets to him.
California's naturalised parrots consist of thirteen species, from the largest, the Double Yellow-headed Amazon, to the smallest, the Yellow-chevroned Parakeet. There are six Amazon species, four conures, two smaller Brotogeris parakeet species and finally our only old world parrot species, the Indian Ring-necked Parakeet.