This San Francisco story begins somewhere along the coast or tropical dry forest of Ecuador or Peru, sometime before the 1980s, in a hole in a tree.
One day, wild red-masked parakeet nestlings—blush-pink, prickly with pinfeathers, and snug in their nursery in a tree—may have heard a machete thwack at the base of their tree or felt hands clasp around them. They were captured because they would mature into adorable, charismatic, dazzling birds, with lime-green bodies, scarlet heads, and clever grins. And people in the U.S. wanted adorable, charismatic, dazzling pets. So, frightened and disoriented, and likely forced into a box crowded with other birds, the nestlings entered the pet trade. They were sold as “cherry-headed conures.”
In 1988, a few appeared in the urban wild of San Francisco. It’s not clear how they got there; it’s also not hard to guess. These medium-size parrots are hot-headed and loud-mouthed. Maybe they escaped, or maybe a tired owner tossed a maelstrom of squawking feathers out a window. Either way, they were free in the City by the Bay…