I'm one of those that will stop and gawk at the appearance of any unexpected avian in my immediate airspace. Hawk, falcon, turkey vulture, red-breasted hoodeedoo... doesn't matter. A few weeks ago in the backyard I happened to look up in time to see a great blue heron winging it across the skies, and damned if I didn't say aloud "Dood, that's totally a great blue heron flying over our house!" to no one but myself and maybe the dog because that's the kind of freak naturegeek I am.

On the off chance you might share my fascination, my wife and I found today what may very well be one of the best spots in the city to observe the increasingly prevalent and relatively noisy-but-hard-to-watch yellow-chevroned parakeet (such as the one pictured below; click to triplify). As we were locking up our bikes prior to the 1 p.m. matinee of Cloverfield today at the Laemmle's Grande Fourplex on Figuero at 4th downtown, we were greeted by scads of the birds and their familiar raucous screeching taking place overhead as they feasted on the fruit of the the date-festooned palm trees around the Marriot Hotel where the theaters are.

One can either admire them from the ground, or for a closer look, go into the hotel's lobby (BTW: the very same one that showcased Christopher Walken's awesome dance moves in this popular Fatboy Slim video), head up to the second floor and get out onto the pedestrian bridge that joins the hotel across Fig to the World Trade Center. Now your up at frond level and so are the birds, and they're too busy eating to mind the spectators. I'd expect they'll be there as long as the fruit is.

This content is made available under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works License. Some rights reserved. This work is provided for personal use only.

Read the complete post at http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/MetrobloggingLANC/~3/220169363/urban_birding_yellowchevroned.phtml