Not sure if Native or Lost Pet....

I think in the case of SoCal, some species are up from Mexico since it is close? If the ones we see here started as escaped pets, there wouldn't be a flock of all the same species, you know?
My understanding is that what generally happened with our feral parrots is truck accidents and mass escapes from pet stores while unloading birds would lead to several wild-caught birds of the same species escaping at once, and those would then establish feral populations. Have any of you seen The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill? San Francisco actually has a mixed flock of mitreds and cherry heads. Several of them are becoming mixed as well. The flock also had a lone blue-crown for years, which may have been an escaped or released but wild-caught personal pet.

One place I wonder about is Scottsdale, Arizona. You see a lot of blue and lutino mutations in pictures of the feral peach-faced lovebirds there, suggesting that either the original birds included some captive bred ones, some peoples' pets subsequently joined the flock, and/or there's not as much predation against those colors as you'd find in the true wild.

And yes, Southern California and South Florida have two of the highest diversities of feral parrots flocks; though most of those flocks are incredibly localized. Unlike the quakers (and Scottsdale's lovebirds) which once they get established roam everywhere, most feral species find there's enough food in a relatively small area (such as Telegraph Hill) that they don't need to leave it.

Of course in all those places, a bird may be escaped as well. There was someone in Killeen who lost his green quaker parrot, a bird he's likely never to find again unless someone 1. sees it looking lost in their yard, 2. doesn't assume it's one of the wild parrots and decided to capture it, 3. it lets itself be captured, and 4. nobody tells them that birds matching exactly that description which live feral in the Austin metro area (which connects via an unbroken chain of development to the Killeen one).
 
:orange::confused:Is it not a conure?
I cannot see the pictures, but the people who did get to see it seem convinced that it's a mitred conure. And since there are feral populations of those in South Florida, it could be wild or a pet though certainly not native. (There are two parrot species native to any state of the US: the extinct Carolina parakeet and the endangered thick-billed parrot, which has been extirpated from its range in Southern Arizona and is now found only in Mexico. I think there's also a couple of Mexican species which have been vagrant to the US, though they don't breed here.)
 
Indian Ring neck parrots have taken over parts of the UK to the point that they are making it hard for the native birds.

Thanks for info. I didn't realise they had reached the numbers they have in UK. IMO much nicer than city pigeons which weren't native I don't think? The UK will not see any migratory wild birds soon as they are being caught and eaten in Cypress. :(

[ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p4P_NhFlb5w"]BBC2 - The Great British Parakeet Invasion - YouTube[/ame]
 
The ancestor of the city pigeon is native to the cliffs of the western fringes of the British Isles (western Scotland and Ireland), but not to anywhere in England. Since domesticated pigeons are usually classified as a separate subspecies, city pigeons are arguably not native anywhere.

While I know that some parts of Southern Europe eat songbirds, I'm skeptical that that's a major cause of endangerment of migratory birds. Do you have evidence for this? A much bigger concern with migratory birds worldwide is habitat loss in winter ranges and along migration routes.
 
I thought perhaps that the city pigeon came about from racing pigeons that had other ideas. If you release hundreds to fly home then some are going to have other ideas and decide to rehome themselves.
 
I did see the The Parrots of Telegraph Hill at one time, but have forgotten the details lol.

Thinking more about it, I can see that if a species is hardy and prolific, that there could be a whole non-indigenous same species flock that could develop regardless of the original circumstances that brought the first ones. We have several Amazon and Conure species where I live.
 

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