The Sun
Sunnyvale's Newspaper

Photograph courtesy of Mark Bittner

Mitred conures--the breed of parrot that dominates Sunnyvale's wild flock--are known for noisy, throaty calls and playful dispositions.

Free Birds

Everyone's seen them, everyone's heard them, so just what are they?

By Maggie Benson

My quest for the birds begins when an email headed "Parrots" arrives on my desktop. "Could you please write an article about the parrots that fly over our house every morning and evening?" the one-sentence, unsigned query reads.

"Parrots? In Sunnyvale?" I ask my computer screen. Curious, I email back, not knowing I'm entering into an eight-hour search for the most elusive creature in Sunnyvale.

"I wonder if years ago somebody lost a pair of parrots, and now they're a flock," Pat Williams hypothesizes after I get her on the phone. She describes the 15ish-member gang as noisy and green with bright red heads. "They're not big like the macaws," she says. "And they're not parakeets."

Her husband's tennis partner, Ed Petersen, told her they roost by his house. He might have answers, she suggests.

I dial 411, find an E. Petersen and call him up.

After introducing myself to the woman who picks up the phone, I explain, "Your husband's tennis partner gave me your name. Do you, or does he, know anything about a flock of wild parrots in Sunnyvale?"

"Parents?" she asks.

"Parrots." I reply. "P-A-R-R-O-T-S. In Sunnyvale. A wild flock. Do you know anything about them?"

"We're not parents and my husband doesn't play tennis," she sputters, before hanging up the phone.

Hmmm. I try a second number.

"Chasing the elusive parrot, are you?" the man who answers coos mysteriously into the receiver. "You never know when those colorful things are going to show up."

Ed lives in Saratoga and hasn't seen the parrots in his back yard for ages--if they're parrots at all. "A lot of birds come through here," he tells me. "At times, I have thought that they were parrots. They are transient: They come here and then they go."

Then he gives me the numbers of everyone he knows in Sunnyvale, though he doesn't say they might have any info on the birds.

So I try another tack. I leave messages at Sunnyvale animal control and the Humane Society. I pull out the phone book and thumb to "bird." I call the Wild Bird Center. I call Wild Life Rescue of Silicon Valley. I call a random Sunnyvale veterinarian. Each give me the obligatory, "Oh" (this "Oh" is long and drawn out, like the person is recovering a long-lost childhood memory). "Ohhhhhh," they say. "The Sunnyvale parrots, I've heard of them." But no one can give me details.

The most I get is from the receptionist at For the Birds, a veterinary hospital. "They were mostly pets that were lost," she enlightens me. "They're so difficult to catch or even get a glimpse of for any period of time."

I'm starting to feel like I'm at camp on a snipe hunt. Or I'm looking for Mr. Snuffleupagus.

I ask her if any of the doctors have heard of the slippery feathered flock. "Nope," she says.

On a lead that the birds have been around for a long time, I call the Sunnyvale Senior Center.

"This is going to sound strange," I say, but does anyone there know anything about a wild flock of parrots in Sunnyvale?"

"Parents?" the receptionist says.

"No, parrots," I say. "P-A-R-R-O-T-S."

The phone clunks down, and I hear a muffled "Anyone know anything about parrots?" Pause. "No. Parrots. P-A-R-R-...."

The phone clunks again, and a new voice sounds through the receiver. "I know about the parrots. They live by St. Martin's," the elderly woman says. "I went to a wedding there, and the birds made so much noise I could barely hear the vows."

Bingo! I pack up my stuff and get ready to head out to St. Martin on Central Avenue. But first, a pink phone message slip appears under my nose with the word "parrot" scratched across it. Kathy, the office manager, hands me the paper--it's the guy from Sunnyvale animal control.

"There's been a pack of wild parrots in our city for quite some time," Don Ray explains when I call him back. "Mostly what we know is fact or fiction; we can't confirm it either way. The old tale goes that more and more parrots got away from their owners, and the pack appears to grow each year."

Ray can't tell me much more, like the breed or why the parrots flourish here. But he does say they have a reputation.

"This pack is pretty infamous. Every six or eight weeks, a curious citizen will call and wonder why there's a parrot in their back yard. They tend to keep to themselves, though," he says, concluding, "I personally have never heard of a green and red parrot dive-bombing anyone."

Ray estimates the flock is anywhere from 30 to 50 birds. Sightings have placed the parrots at the far north and far south ends of the city. "I've seen them take up an entire treetop before and turn it red," he describes.

I ask if anyone has conducted a study on the flock. "As far as I know, you are the only one to do extensive research," he responds. "This is historic ground here."

As I'm headed out the door to the church, Kathy suggests I call the Palo Alto Daily. She remembers reading something about citizens complaining about a wild flock of birds.

On the phone again, I describe my situation to the Daily receptionist. "I'll transfer you to the parrot desk," she quips.

Yeesh.

A reporter answers. After explaining that in Palo Alto they have their own flock--which is, apparently, raising hell at a local church--she says she doesn't know anything about the Sunnyvale gang. "Call Mark Bittner," she offers.

"Who's Mark Bittner?" I ask. Though she gives me the phone number, she struggles for an answer. "Just call him."

I dial Bittner's 415 number. The message machine picks up: "...if you want info on the parrots, this is the right number to call."

This is getting weird.

Before I can get out the door, I get a call from the Humane Society's special needs manager, Jane Alexander, who, I quickly realize, is Queen of All Things Bird. She's also a Sunnyvale resident and well-versed on my parrots, which I now know are mitred conures. They could have some cherry-headed conure thrown in there for good measure, too.

"I've been seeing them for at least 12 years that I know of," she says, adding that the first sightings reported just a pair of the red-faced flyers. "They have been a successful flock. They have been fruitful and multiplied."

Alexander confirms that the birds likely started as escaped or lost pets. "They wouldn't have migrated here from their native habitat, so they obviously had to be released by their owners--or it could have been accidental."

Conures are Mexican, Central or South American birds. They've been successful here for the same reason most transplants stick around: the mild climate. They also have access to a preponderance of fruits and nuts, their favorite dish.

As a sedentary breed, Sunnyvale is their territory and Sunnyvale will stay their territory.

"It's not rare for me to get a caller who says, 'Do you know there's a flock of parrots flying around?' " Alexander explains, "And I always say, 'Are you in Sunnyvale?' and they always reply, 'Yeah.'

"I really don't think they move too far from Sunnyvale."

On the road on the way to the church, I have my window rolled down with my head hanging out, dog-like. In the back seat, two other reporters from the paper are doing the same thing. "These are noisy birds," I instruct. "If they're in the neighborhood, we'll hear them."

Hearing nothing but the wind slapping against our ears and an occasional car horn, we get to the church. Clearly we've found the place. The eaves are covered with yard-long streams of whitish-brown gunk--the sort that only a bird could leave behind. The parrots seem to have built their homes by burrowing into the vents that run along the peak of the church. While we see their home, there's no sign of the birds.

The burrowing, I learn when Bittner calls me back later that day, is normal. In their native land, Mitred conures are canopy dwellers that don't build nests. Instead, they find holes and scoop them out to make spacious homes.

Bittner's San Francisco birds, which he's been studying since they stopped to pick up sunflower seeds on his fire escape one day five years ago, is mixed, like the Sunnyvale flock.

The self-taught ornithologist is unemployed, and he's made his life's work tracking the area's wild parrots. There are two flocks of 60 or more in San Francisco, one in Palo Alto and one in Sunnyvale. The Berkeley and Burlingame bands are defunct.

The hotbed of wild parrot activity is in Southern California, Bittner states, where experts estimate between 2,000 and 3,000 live.

Most local flocks started about 10 years ago, Bittner says. Since that time, myths have been flying: they escaped from a sinking ship, a local pet story burned down, a smuggler lost track of them.

"Why are people so fascinated with the birds?" I ask, slightly distracted by the jungle of noises drowning his voice over the receiver.

"It's kind of surreal to see parrots flying around in the area," he answers simply.

After inspecting the currently parrot-less eaves, I find the day-care director, Josephine Scrosoppi, at St. Martin school, across the street. She's been a parishioner at the church for 14 years; the parrots have been with the church for 10, she says.

"It's weird, they come around and squawk for hours, usually during the daytime. You're in the middle of the homily, and you just hear screeching. Everyone knows about them, so everyone just ignores them," she explains.

We head back to the office the same way we came, heads wagging out the window. But this time the pulled neck muscles are worth it. "Do you hear that?" I yelp after hearing a distinctive squawking sound, the kind you only hear in pet stores. "There they are!"

A band of eight green-tailed, red-topped parrots fly in a V formation between the Toys R Us on El Camino and the light at Mathilda.

Yakking all the way, they disappear into a tree. The light turns green and we drive away, armed with visual proof that Mark Bittner is right. It is surreal to see a flock of parrots flying through a city.

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This article appeared in the Sunnyvale Sun, August 12, 1998.
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