Wild Green Parrots of Long Beach
One of the first and most arresting things I noticed right away about Long Beach, were the extremely boisterous flocks of brilliant-green wild parrots. A quite bizarre experience, to say the least…
So, you’re sitting at a stop light in Belmont Shore, a wealthy neighborhood and shopping district along the beach, and all of a sudden you hear an overwhelmingly LOUD screeching of birds. You wonder what kind of birds could possibly make such a racket…”What is THAT?!”
And then they swoop across the intersection right in front of you.
“Those are the brightest green birds I’ve ever seen!” you think to yourself (or out loud, if you aren’t traveling alone).
You start asking around. “Where did those green parrots with the long tails come from? Why are they in Long Beach? How long have they been here?”
Fully expecting a scientific answer along the lines of: “Well, they migrate and they stop off here along the way,” you are amazed to learn otherwise…
Rumor has it, there was a fire in a local pet shop, years ago and some of the parrots escaped.
Yes, they disappear during the winter and nobody can say EXACTLY where they go, but in the spring they return. They stay around the beach communities in Long Beach until the southern California “winter” arrives. If you come to Long Beach in the spring or summer, you won’t be able to avoid them. They seem to live in family groups around Ocean Boulevard, returning every spring to grace us with their loud screeching and beautiful bright green and yellow plumage. Another rumor has it, that this bunch flew over from Louisiana. No one knows for sure. So, when you visit Long Beach, enjoy the wildlife!
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May 10th, 2007 at 11:08 am
I remember them well. I grew up in LB and at one point lived on the penninsula (east end of Ocean Blvd). Every time I left the penninsula, I would “hear” the parrots, but rarely saw them. A few times something would scare them out of the trees for a moment, and these beautiful green birds would fly in a circle, and return to their respective trees! Neat to hear about them, I live now live in Oregon, and am lovin it, and blogging it!
August 4th, 2008 at 4:11 pm
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