The giant escapee

When my interest in the birds of North America was at its peak, I bought the then-new revised version of the Sibley guide to the birds of North America. This book has more escapee birds included in it than any other field guide I've found; everything from finches to flamingos. Among these escapees is a large number of escaped parrots, which finishes with this:

 

As it turns out, there was reason enough to include this species, as huge and expensive as it is, due to the fact that, like many other parrots, it has apparently been seen a number of times in Florida.

 

What does this have to do with New Zealand birds? Not much, though I did come across this news article detailing the time a bird of the same species decided to explore the neighbourhood in Timaru.

 

'Course, in this country, that's not something that you can expect to happen again. These birds pretty much never go for less than $10,000 in these parts, and I imagine that their owners keep them pretty well-guarded.

 

For now, the position of 'most commonly-seen escaped parrot in NZ' will stay with budgies and cockatiels.