Help save injured and orphaned wild parrots

We made it to the end of 2017 and I wanted to thank all of our donors for their support.  Thank you to everyone who has donated to us through GlobalGiving, who have sent us supplies through Amazon and volunteers who have donated their time at our facility.  Without everyone's help we wouldn't be able to do what we do.

Let's get to it!  As of December 15th, we have taken in 118 parrots for 2017.  We had our annual amazon release in November.  We had 62 amazons sitting in carriers waiting for the wild flock to arrive.  As always, the flock comes flying in pairs.  They start landing in groups within a couple thousand feet of their night roost.  As they start landing they are squawking and our amazons start to realize that there are other parrots in the world.  You'll here an excited call back here and there from our carriers.  As the sun starts to set, you'll get a group of about a hundred or so amazons decide it is time to go to roost.  This is when we start to release our amazons so they can rejoin their parents, brothers and sisters that they were apart from for 6 months or so.  One by one they realize that they can fly more than 60 ft, which is their limit in our flight.  Our amazons quickly assimilate into the flock and we can't tell them apart anymore.  As the wild amazons flying into the roost went past 400 individuals plus adding our new releases, it becomes a very loud jumble of squawks and screams.  As always, the social makeup of the flock takes in strangers without question or fights.  We currently have 15 conures in our pre-release flight who are building up their flight muscles.

In October we held our annual Picnic With The Parrots at our facility.  We have scaled back this event over the years to make it manageable.  The more parrots that arrive at our door the less time we have to plan events.  However, this was one of our best Picnics we ever had.  We saw a bunch of new faces as well as the dedicated who come year after year.  It's cool to hear each person's story of how they first came across the wild flock flying around San Diego.  The most common is the flyover of little screaming green things and wondering what the heck was that!  Animal care organizations are always underfunded so we always try to help each other out when we can.  A big thank you to Project Wildlife, The Living Coast Discovery Center and Intertwined Conservation for setting booths at Picnic to help spread their conservation messages.  

Here are a couple of updates of parrots I discussed in previous reports.  Two Stroke is out flying across San Diego with his new flock.  He was released in November.  Once he was put in a carrier and taken to the release site, he became one with the flock.  I have pictures of the release but I couldn't tell you which one Two Stroke is, from far away it's hard to even tell if an amazon is a red-crown or lilac-crown so recognizing a particular individual is almost impossible.  We hope he lives a long life with his flock.  As I have mentioned in the past, each of the parrots we release have been microchipped so if we ever get one back injured, we will know who they are.  Hopefully we will never see Two Stroke return to us and we can imagine him flying free with his new family.  In the last report I told the story of a yellow head parrot that came to us shot.  She was from the small yellow head flock in Imperial Beach.  After almost four months of medication to fight lead poisoning and putting weight back on, she was finally healthy enough to meet our other yellow head.  We knew they had to know each other and have a good chance of being related since they came from the same small flock.  It made all of the waiting worth it when they saw each other.  They are inseparable now.  Over the years that our yellow head IBY was in our flight as the only yellow head, she would make her "flock call" which is a call for her flock to join her.  It's a very distinctive call and sad to hear when you knew no other parrots would be coming to join her.  Now we don't hear that call as much.  

We are planning on having a great 2018.  We are currently in the process of getting our permits to build our new wildlife care center.  I hate to think we won't be up and running by this time next year but it is a sloooooow process.  We first submitted plans in May and are still working through the red tape of trying to build in California.  I won't bore you with the details but I will keep you informed of our progress.  We are building a temporary cage to make space for the number of parrots we ae taking in every year.  We are maxed out for room at our current property so we are building a cage that can be moved to our new proerty once it is ready.  Thanks again for all of your support.