Wild Mitred Conure Parrots of Seattle

Someone caught a great photo of one of Seattle's wild Mitred Conure parrots in the area of 175th and 18th in Shoreline, just north of Seattle, today and reported it as a lost Amazon parrot. The wild mitred conures migrate out of Seward Park late in the fall to overwinter in Shoreline:

Not only have the mitred conures survived here in Seattle since possibly the 1970s, there are two confirmed independent flocks. One based in Lake Washington's Seward Park. And a second based in Golden Gardens in northwest Seattle. Both flocks are estimated to number twenty to thirty individuals.

Wild Mitred Conure Parrots of Seattle's Seward Park

This article, Peru Natives Make Annual Trip to Seward Park, by Katie McVicker, was published in its entirety by Seattle Parks and Recreation, March 25, 2014:

Mitred conure on a cherry blossom tree in Seward Park.

Photo by Denise Takahashi.

Mitred Conures, or green parrots, are native to the Andes in South America, but every spring a flock shows up in Seward Park. Joey Manson, the Operations Manager at Seward Park Audubon Center, said no one on staff is clear on the birds’ history, but there is a theory that the parrots are released or escaped house pets from Ballard. Friends of Seward Park Board President Paul Talbert said people have claimed to see the birds in the park since the 1970s. He said the flock has ranged from a high of 16 members to a low of three. This year’s number hasn’t been determined, but Manson said people have been hearing the birds chattering overhead for a few weeks.

In earlier years, the flock used to spend its winters in the Maple Leaf neighborhood, but hasn’t been spotted there recently. The parrots had a nest in a hole in a Douglas fir near one of the picnic shelters, but Talbert said the nest was taken over by bees. Local residents have reported that the birds frequently raid their growing sunflowers and bird feeders.

If you want to catch a glimpse of the parrots, Talbert said sightings are most likely to occur around picnic shelter #3 or near flowering trees, and the best way to find the parrots is to listen: although the birds fly high, they are very loud.

To update this story we are happy to report several sightings of the Seward Park parrots during the course of this past winter. They have been confirmed in Shoreline's Ridgecrest neighborhood, just north of Seattle, as well as Seattle's Laurelhurst neighborhood within the past couple of weeks. With Seattle experiencing an early spring we can expect their return to Seward Park in the not too distant future.

The Wild Parrots of Shoreline

Thanks to Shoreline Area News for this photo and report of the feral Mitred Conure parrots of Seattle, showing up in the same Shoreline neighborhood, just north of Seattle, for the second year in a row.

According to the Shoreline Area News:

The parrots have returned to Stefanie Gendreau's back yard for the second year.

From information received after we published her photos last year, it seems that there are several small flocks of parrots that remain in the area year round. Although parrots are tropical birds, the weather here is mild enough that they have been able to adapt. Parrots have been reported at Golden Gardens, Leschi, and, of course, in Stefanie's Shoreline back yard.

As they are so far from their homeland, bird experts believe that these parrots are escaped pets, who have found each other in the Northwest skies.

Seattle's Wild Parrots: Mitred Conures of Maple Leaf

The mild weather this winter here in Seattle apparently has been a boon to Seattle's wild Mitred Conure parrots, as well as Seattle bird watchers. Several sightings of Seattle's wild Mitred Conures have been confirmed, and some really nice photos posted as well. This blog reported a sighting of the Golden Gardens parrots in Seattle's Ballard neighborhood back in September, 2011. Recently, sightings of the Maple Leaf/Shoreline parrots have been confirmed.


The Shoreline, Washington blog Of Paramount Importance, reported that three Mitred Conures (incorrectly identified as Scarlet Fronted Parakeets), were spotted foraging in the Maple Leaf neighborhood of Northeast Seattle, in the vicinity of 12 Avenue NE and NE 90th Street, on December 12, 2011. These Mitred Conures winter in the Maple Leaf/Shoreline area and return to Seattle's Seward Park for the summer. The Conures are known to venture as far north as the Ridgecrest neighborhood in Shoreline.

Photograph by Dennis Paulson, January 20, 2010

People typically report hearing the parrots prior to ever seeing them. Possibly the same three Mitred Conures were reported by the Maple Leaf Life blog in the same Maple Leaf area on September 24, 2010.


The Shoreline Area News blog published these terrific photos of Mitred Conures on January 9, 2012, foraging in Hawthorne trees in the Ridgecrest neighborhood..

Three Mitred Conures in a Ridgecrest Hawthorne Tree
Photo by Stefanie Gendreau, January 9, 2012

Mitred Conure in a Ridgecrest Hawthorne Tree

Photo by Stefanie Gendreau, January 9, 2012

This photo clearly shows that these parrots are not Scarlet or Red-fronted Conures, but are in fact Mitred Conures.The photographer Stefanie Gendreau reported:

My guess is that they nest in Hamlin Park but we see or more often hear them (emphasis added) on 8th NE and 9th NE in Ridgecrest. They usually travel in pairs but this group of three is what we've been seeing this winter. 

Support Your Local Invasive Species!

The Wild Parrots of Seattle

A Pair of Mitred Conures in Golden Gardens Park, Photographed January 10, 2010

We have lived in the Ballard neighborhood of North Seattle since 1999. We knew about the wild parrots in Seward Park (see below), but after moving to Ballard we starting hearing that there was a flock of wild parrots in this neighborhood. Unfortunately the only locations we could ever get were really vague, and not very useful as a starting point in trying to locate the parrots. After about ten years of hearing about these parrots we were starting to think they were just an urban myth.

But recently, our local neighborhood newspaper, The Ballard News-Tribune, published a photo of the parrots, taken January 10, 2010, at Golden Gardens Park:

http://www.ballardnewstribune.com/2010/01/11/features/green-my-ballard-wild-parrots-sunset-hill?sms_ss=twitter

The parrots look to be Mitred conures, same as the conures of Seward Park across the city on Lake Washington. We would guess that the Sunset Hill parrots are an independent flock because of the distance to Seward Park on Lake Washington, but we suppose it wouldn't be impossible for the parrots to forage that distance.

After the photo was published in the Ballard newspaper, we started hearing from people who live in the vicinity of Golden Gardens who have seen the parrots, and who were able to provide an actual location to see the parrots. According to this information, the best location to see the parrots is the top of the gully above Golden Gardens Park, west of 29th Avenue NW near NW 85th Street:

http://www.mapquest.com/maps?city=Seattle&state=WA&address=29th+Ave+NW+%26+NW+85th+St&zipcode=98117&country=US&latitude=47.69058&longitude=-122.39429&geocode=INTERSECTION

From the aerial map, it looks like Edgewest Drive NW may be the best access to the area. But at least it gives us a place to start looking.

This is earlier information from May of 2009 posted about the wild parrots of Seward Park:

The Columbia Citizens neighborhood blog has recently posted updates on the wild conures of Seattle's Seward Park, in the neighborhood of 49th Avenue and Hudson Street. Photos of the parrots taken May 19 and May 20 can be seen on the blog post by going to the following link:

http://columbiacitizens.net/forum/t-154856

According to one local resident: In years past, maybe ten or twelve years ago, we counted fourteen parrots at one time. More recently the numbers seem to be dwindling…these days we see three or four maybe in our neck of the woods—43rd Avenue and Ferdinand Street. I was told they've been around for a long time and originated with a bird (or two) flying out of someone's open window.

The Wild Parrots of the Pacific Northwest

The Mitred conures in Seattle


We've all heard of the wild parrots of San Francisco, made famous by Mark Bittner in his best selling book and Judy Irving's documentary The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill. Doing some research in The Seattle Times Newspaper archives, I ran across a couple of articles regarding the locally known feral parrots in Seattle's Seward Park. Apparently the Seward Park parrots were established by 1995 beginning with a group of three parrots, with another report in the newspaper as late as 2003. The parrots are even featured on the website of The Friends of Seward Park, which describes their location as the north bluff of Pinoy Hill. The parrots are Mitred conures (Aratinga mitrata). This got me to thinking that it might be of interest to do a census of feral parrots throughout the Pacific Northwest. The Audubon Society does a bird count every year. Maybe a parrot count is in order!

There are at least three known (but not necessarily documented) groups of feral parrots here in Seattle: the Seward Park bunch, and another in the Maple Leaf neighborhood of northeast Seattle (which may or may not be the same parrots), documented just this year as far north as Shoreline, Washington, just north of Seattle. I've also heard of a flock of conures that supposedly escaped from Woodland Park Zoo on Phinney Ridge many years ago. I regularly encounter people who claim to have seen the birds, so I'm pretty confident that they exist.

I'm curious where there might be other flocks of parrots established within the Pacific Northwest. Of course there is the notorious group of Quaker parrots in Yacolt, Washington, near Vancouver and Portland. Quakers are also know as Monk parrots (Myiopsitta monachus).  Currently seventeen (17) individual parrots have been counted. And I understand there is a group of Quakers established on the Oympic Peninsula in Port Orchard, Washington. I have heard that at least one flock of Quakers in Port Orchard is doing well. There was a fairly large flock with more than twenty (20) individual parrots located on Mitchell Street which apparently was eradicated in the dead of night, probably by a local utility company.

Several flocks of Quakers are established in Oregon. The State of Oregon has determined that Quaker parrots are not an agricultural threat and there are no official eradication efforts in the state. Feral Quaker or Monk parrots were first documented in Oregon in 1977 when one was killed by a dove hunter in North Portland. Also in 1977 a pair escaped from captivity and built a nest on a power pole in southeast Portland. By 1980 a colony of 10 birds could be found at this location, but the nests were abandoned by 1984. About 1980-1981 Monk parrots were reported from several locales in the northeastern and southeastern Portland area and a large stick nest was constructed near Portland International Airport. The colony flourished and several nests were added. Up to 24 birds have been counted at the nest, but it is suspected that these nests are being abandoned. Recently, there have been up to five active Quaker nests counted in Oregon White Oak trees around Portland International Airport. There is also a nest near Scio, built in 2000 on a telephone pole, that at one time contained up to 8 birds, but is believed to be currently abandoned. There have been sporadic sightings of Monk parrots in Deadwood, Hillsboro, Gaston, Oregon City, and even in some northern Oregon coastal regions.

Thanks to Donna Burleigh of S & D Exotic Bird Rescue for the information about Oregon parrots!

 Update May 29, 2009

The Columbia Citizens blog of the Columbia City neighborhood in Seattle recently posted an update about the Seward Park parrots, with photographs of some of the parrots taken May 19th and May 20th. They were sighted in the area of 49th Avenue South and Hudson Street, as well as 43rd Avenue South and Ferdinand Street.

One longtime resident noted: In years past, maybe ten or twelve years ago, we counted fourteen conures at one time. More recently the numbers seem to be dwindling…these days we see three or four maybe in our neck of the woods, 43rd Avenue and Ferdinand Street. I was told they've been around for a long time and originated with a bird (or two) flying out of someone's open window.

And thanks to Christopher Driggins of Northwest Bird Rescue and Adoption for this link to his blog updating the status, with photographs, of the Yacolt Quaker parrots.