Friday Field Foto #34: Austral parakeets

More correctly, today is a Friday Field Video.

We have come across various interesting wildlife during our fieldwork in southern Chile (e.g., pygmy owl, guanaco, ibis). One of the more interesting, and seemingly out-of-place, creatures we happen upon are Austral parakeets. They are bright green, travel in large flocks, and make a lot of noise.

I shot this little video (30 sec) on my digital camera in March 2006. It was very early in the morning at our campsite and several parakeets took residence in a tree near our tents and proceeded to squawk for a good 30 minutes. The lighting is poor so you can’t see their brilliant colors, but you can see their silhouettes against the sky, and you can definitely hear the racket they make. An effective alarm clock.

Our tents are tucked underneath the trees toward the end of the video. And the rocks that we are studying here are up the hill to the right (not shown in video), and look like this once you hike up the mountain a bit.

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See all Friday Field Foto posts here.

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