Parrots

When a falcon swoops from the sky to seize its prey, no one would mistake the predator for a gaudy parrot. Yet the secret kinship of falcons and parrots is one of many surprises in a landmark genetic study of 169 bird species published by Field Museum researchers. One likely consequence of the study in Friday's edition of the journal Science is a reordering of the field guides that many of America's 80 million bird-watchers use.

ZaZu hangs upside down on the curtains of the apartment window, surveying all that is his: the jumble of colorful plastic balls, the climbing ladders, the panoramic view of the ocean. And the woman standing before him, cooing. "Whaddya say, cutie? Are you my sweetie?" she asks. The 3-year-old rainbow lorikeet -- a small parrot -- is a melange of colors. His head is a deep cobalt blue, his torso a flame red with black stripes.

SAN DIEGO -- They were caught coming into the country illegally from Mexico, sedated and hidden under blankets or in duffel bags. On Wednesday, 149 parrots and parakeets seized from smugglers were sent home. The neon green birds, which had been held in quarantine for up to 18 months on U.S. soil at the Otay Mesa border crossing, were handed over in cages to Mexican authorities.

Alex, the African grey parrot who knew more than 100 words, could count to six, and recognized shapes and colors, has died. The bird was 31 and appeared to have died of natural causes, said Irene Pepperberg, the scientist who trained and studied him for three decades. Alex's feats, which Pepperberg documented in dozens of scientific journals, challenged the notion that only apes and dolphins were smart enough to understand human language.

IT is a hard heart that doesn't break a little in the presence of a bird in a cage or -- in the case of the parrots of California -- cheer at an escape. One Los Angeles species to elude the pet trade has so thoroughly transcended entrapment that it is fast becoming an urban natural wonder.

THEY may not yet rank with the cable cars and the Golden Gate Bridge, but the wild parrots of San Francisco are becoming a tourist attraction. "It's become like a modern San Francisco classic story," said filmmaker Judy Irving, whose 2005 documentary "The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill" first brought the birds to international attention. "People are nuts about the parrots. They see the film and then they want to see them. They've become a tourist attraction."

IT was a pleasure to read your piece about wild parrots and to have some of the mystery cleared up as to their origins ["Haven in the Asphalt Savanna," Feb. 9]. I once lived across from a tree that they were friendly with, and at the end of the day I would find them hidden beneath the foliage. The branches were loaded with birds. GEORGE LARRIMORE \o7Los Angeles\f7 ENJOYED your article on the avian exotica. My favorites, which I observed in Pacific Palisades when I toiled in the rose gardens of the rich yet obscure -- were the black-headed parakeets.

Scientists say they've documented for the first time that some animals "dance" to a musical beat. The researchers studied a few live birds and about 1,000 YouTube videos, looking for signs that animals feel the beat of music they hear. Some parrots did, and maybe an occasional elephant, according to two studies published Thursday in Current Biology(09)00890-2. But they found no evidence of such behavior in dogs and cats, despite long exposure to people and music, nor for chimps, our closest living relatives.

Juan Gonzalez-Villavicencio, 37, and Corrina Leanna Conn, 36, of Hesperia have pleaded guilty in a parrot-smuggling scheme that resulted in the sale at an Ontario swap meet of birds carrying Newcastle disease. In federal court in Los Angeles, Gonzalez-Villavicencio pleaded guilty to conspiracy and making false statements to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Conn pleaded guilty to making a false statement.

To the singular sounds of San Francisco -- cable cars, foghorns, gridlocked drivers waxing poetic -- add the siren scream of a flock of wild parrots. Inhabitants of Telegraph Hill for at least a decade, the flock of cherry-headed conures flew under the radar until Mark Bittner, a resident of the Greenwich Steps on Telegraph Hill, became fascinated with them. He fed them, named them, studied them and, when some became ill, took them into his home and cared for them.