ML619067813

Age

Not specified

Sex

Not specified

Observation details

I heard Mitred Parakeets pretty quickly upon stepping outside, and I followed their sound to a stand of palm trees at the west side of the intersection of Rosemead and Pentland. The parakeets moved among the palms, sometimes perching on fronds and sometimes clinging to the trunk. Others perched on wires and in the medium-small sycamores along the street. When a Cooper's Hawk flew in and went after the parakeets, they all flushed, circled overhead a couple times, and ended up landing in another group of palm trees a block to the north, across Rosemead from the Garden Inn, just north of Sereno. When the flock was in flight, I tried estimating by tens and got around 100 or 110. A photo I took of a portion of the flock in flight shows around 81 birds. After I made this count, it seemed to me that more flocks of parakeets kept flying in from various directions, probably new birds to the roost, so I think there ended up being 150 or so. However, I couldn't quite be sure that they weren't just some of the same groups circling back. The parakeets eventually moved back to their original palms at Rosemead and Pentland, and they seemed to be settling there for the night. I looked for Red-masked or other species mixed in, but I didn't see any. A great opportunity to watch and listen to these birds! I saw several pairs allopreening. Others squabbled with each other over perches.

Technical information

Model

Canon PowerShot SX620 HS

ISO

1600

Focal length

112.5 mm

Flash

Flash did not fire

f-stop

f/6.6

Shutter speed

1/400 sec

Dimensions

2070 pixels x 1552 pixels

Original file size

927.38 KB