snell@utzoo.UUCP (snell) (12/11/87)
In article <35652@sun.uucp>, chuq@plaid.Sun.COM (Chuq Von Rospach) writes: >>I have one other question that has been troubling me. What the devil is >>a *domestic (non-pet) parrot*? > >A domestic non-pet parrot is anything that used to be a pet and is no longer >(or is the progeny of same). They're all over the place, if you just knew >where to look...... Well, now this is a definition I certainly can live with. What you have described are feral birds. Other examples are Starlings, House Sparrows, Eurasian Tree Sparrows, and Monk Parakeets. All now in the wild. Do send in articles on your observations of these feral birds--this is exactly the sort of thing this group was set up for. >(As another silly aside, there is this flock of crows >near my mothers house that occasionally raids her fig tree. Its leader >happens to be an umbrella cockatoo. THAT's an amusing site, to say the least. Actually, this is quite interesting. Certainly more than a silly aside. I am surprised that crows would accept a parrot into their social network, let alone allow it to become their leader. I have often watched crows, and have never really felt any are the `leader'. What observations have you made that make you think this is what is going on. I suspect the parrot, at best, is simply trying to follow the crows around, like a lost dog. An aside from the Great White North: Feral budgies seem to do very well in Toronto, at least until the cold weather arrives. Then they drop dead--as far as I know, none manage to over-winter outside. (Same applies to other escapees such as Zebra Finches). __ Name: Richard Snell Mail: Dept. Zoology, Univ. Toronto Toronto, Ontario, Canada M5S 1A1 UUCP: {allegra,decvax,ihnp4,linus,pyramid,yetti,utai}!utzoo!snell BITNET: utzoo!snell@utoronto.bitnet