Brightly coloured parrots are driving Bay horticulturist crackers.
And Environment Bay of Plenty is also in a flap because of the damage the red-headed birds are doing to crops.
They are loud and well dressed and have reportedly been seen in their hundreds blitzing Katikati and Rotorua but the parrots are officially classified as unidentified flying objects.
"We haven't been able to verify the Katikati sightings. We actually have no real idea how many are out there, or where they are. We just know they seem to be more of a nuisance," says the council's pest animal co-ordinator David Moore.
"We urgently want to find out more about a pest bird called the eastern rosella - and need the public's help to do so," Mr Moore stressed.
The eastern rosella is a large, vividly coloured bird. It has a loud, carrying call and a swift, swirling flight path.
"Orchardists are complaining that they are ripping fruit off trees and causing quite a lot of damage. We need to find out the scale of the problem.
"They are going for developing fruit - targeting orchards in large numbers."
The regional council wants to gather proper data on the pest's distribution and number.
Anyone who sights the birds in the next few weeks is asked to phone a freephone number, 0508 ROSELLA (0508 767 355).
"We want to know how many you saw and where and when you saw them. That's all."
Eastern rosellas are logged as a surveillance pest animal in EBOP's regional pest management strategy, along with magpies, mynahs and wasps and can be legally shot.
From Australia, the parrots are larger and more colourful than native parakeets, with red head and breast and white cheek patches, a scalloped yellow-green back, pale green rump and yellow and green belly. Their outer feathers are blue.
Orchardists in a flap as pesky parrot strips trees of fruit
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