Date: 4/13/24 8:36 am From: Dominik Mosur <dominikmosur...> Subject: Re: [SFBirds] who might know about the current parrot population in San Francisco?
Harry,
The Red-masked Parakeet (Psitacara erythrogenus) population in SF has
steadily grown and expanded its population in the City and County of San
Francisco.
I read the book "the Parrots of Telegraph Hill" by Mark Bittner many years
ago but seem to recall his observations from the early 90s indicated a
population of several dozen (~30-50) birds at most. These birds were
observed in the area of North Beach/Telegraph Hill. However Bittner doesn't
mention (or at least I don't recall him mentioning) whether he undertook
any systematic searches for the birds in other parts of the City.
Today with the help of a volume of data from thousands of eBird users we
know that a winter visit to the parakeets main winter roost at Ferry Park
yields estimates/counts of 200+ birds. In late winter/early spring it is
evident that smaller sub-flocks disperse out to the various parts of San
Francisco and fledglings start showing up with the flocks by May. I suspect
at least the following breeding sub-flocks are present in various
neighborhoods most years : Diamond Heights - Corona Heights - Mission,
Mclaren Park - Crocker Amazon, Monterey Heights/Glen Park (this may be
wandering birds from McLaren) East Presidio - Pac Heights, Fort Mason -
north bayshore to embarcadero, Inner Sunset - East Golden Gate
Park/Panhandle. Red-masked Parakeets seem to be still somewhat uncommon on
the west side of the city. in ~15+ years of living in the outer sunset
I've only encountered them a couple of times in the vicinity of Stern
Grove.
Let me know if you need additional information on the current or past
status and distribution of any of our local species.
Dominik Mosur
San Francisco
On Fri, Apr 12, 2024 at 6:06 PM Harry Fuller via groups.io <anzatowhee=
<yahoo.com...> wrote:
