I keep a bird feeder on my porch (as well as a few pine cones rolled in peanut butter and seeds that my little cousin and I made) and when I looked outside this morning there was a plump little peach-faced lovebird chowing down at the feeder!
I wasn’t able to capture a picture but this is what they look like:
It was funny seeing a colorful tropic bird alighting on the feeder along with all my typical customers- mottled brown and grey desert birds.
I had also remembered seeing a small flock of these beauties at Arizona State Uni a few times. So, I did a little bit of research and I found out that in the late 1990’s the owners of an aviary decided to free the birds. This is not the first time this has happened either, flocks of cockatiels and parakeets have been mistakenly released in the past but the birds were never able to adapt and died out. The peach-faced lovebirds, however, have gone mad in our dry dessert heat and there are now hundreds of them in the greater Phoenix metro area. (and luckily they don’t seem to be hurting the native bird populations either)
Read more about the birds here
Those of you residing in AZ have you seen any of these little guys? report seeing one here and aid the Arizona Game and Fish department in tracking the location and numbers of the peach faced lovebirds!
I googled a bunch of photos people have taken of the birds here in the valley… Seeing parrots in Saguaro cacti is so cool!
Kuri Curiosities 