Tuesday, November 25, 2008

a pandemonium of parrots!




i've posted about pasadena's green parrots before, but until a few days ago i had never seen a flock as big as the one i found on sunday. i found them while riding my bike north of orange grove on los robles.

the first image seems like that parrot was almost posing for me. second was part of the flock in flight, and the third is a good example of how packed together they were in those trees!

oh, and did you know that a flock of parrots is called a pandemonium?

13 comments:

Anonymous said...

Have you ever seen "The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill"? It's about a big flock of parrots in San Francisco. It's worth Tivo-ing or ordering from NetFlix. See http://www.wildparrotsfilm.com/

ben wideman said...

Thanks for the tip Kathy. I've never seen that.

Anonymous said...

I have had plenty of experiences with the parrots over the years.

But I think the most odd one was at Mountain View Cemetery, while waiting to bury my mother. As we stood under the trees, the flock, or pandemonium, circled around, screeching. It was unsettling and a bit weird in such a quiet place to have such a racket. After some time, they took off.

About as weird as the pack of dogs that ALSO ran thru the same cemetery one time---probably 15 of them. Scared the daylights out of me.

Ditto on what Kathy H said.

ben wideman said...

Trish - that is so strange! What a weird story. Thanks for sharing!

Laurie Allee said...

There was quite a pandamonium at my place3 this morning. They like to congregate in the tree above the skylight that is over our bed. Nothing like watching ten parrots drop camphor tree sticks from right above as you're trying to wake up!

These are marvelous shots, Ben!

Anonymous said...

the parrots on orange grove were simply taking a constitutional after devouring a huge, messy, and noisy breakfast at my house. but so what? They make me laugh.

Laurie, are tree branches the only things they drop on your skylight?

Anonymous said...

I live on a hillside and look down on the parrots when they're in flight. From my vantage point the birds remind me of a school of air born tetra fish.

Mister Earl said...

Yes, Ben, you need to rent that movie, The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill. I've been mentioning it on Laurie's blog for awhile.

ben wideman said...

Laurie, that is quite a wake up!

Altadenahiker - agreed. I saw more this morning at the farmers market and they made me smile!

PA - a better comparison does not exist! Flying fish!

Mr. Earl, it almost makes me want to sign up for netflix just to watch it!

Unknown said...

Those parrots drive me nuts sometimes. Their beauty _almost_ makes up for the obnoxious noise they can generate.

Petrea Burchard said...

Ben, what great shots! It's not easy to catch these guys sitting still. Pandemonium is the word. They always sound like they're in a panic. I absolutely love them.

Anonymous said...

If you have a friend with a netflik account and pc (not MAC) you can watch it from their account. It's very sweet, like that program where the white Lemur gets separated from his mother and dies pitifully (why didn't the camera person intercede)? Like the Wizard of Oz, that one gets me every time.

ben wideman said...

JT - I think I like them so much because I don't see them too often. I could imagine they get pretty annoying after a while.

Petrea - thanks once again for the compliments!

PA - Great idea - except we are a mac family...