BAKERSFIELD, Calif. (KGET) – You’ve seen them. Maybe it registered at the time, but unless you’re a bird person, maybe it didn’t. Parakeets, more than a foot tall, with lime green plumage and touches of blue, yellow and black. Exotic birds from the parrot family you’d expect to find in a tropical climate. What are they doing in places like Beale Park and Old Stockdale, 8,000 miles from the Indian subcontinent of their origin?
The answer starts at the Happy Bird Aviary, just west of the Kern County Fairgrounds. The business is long gone but the sign is still here.
Happy Bird’s moment of reckoning came sometime within the apocalyptic 48-hour period of Dec. 20 to 21, 1977. The Great Kern County Dust Storm paralyzed Bakersfield for a week, left five people dead and caused damage estimated at $34 million, but in reality far exceeded that sum…