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Ornithology
So last month as I was walking Thing One home from the chiropractor (long story....), I saw a couple of guys pointing and staring up into a small tree. When I followed their lead, I saw a bright green parrot (well, some kind of psittacid -- I don't know them all apart). And another. And another. They took off and were joined by at least half a dozen more from other trees. I had heard there were parrots in Brooklyn, but didn't know they had moved to Queens. December in New Yawk....
Yesterday as I was taking the Things on a routine walk to excrete and check their p-mail, I saw a red-tailed hawk in the top of a tall tree in the front yard of a house. It flew away, and another flew into the same tree. At least one of them seemed to be carrying a stick in its mouth; nesting pair? In retrospect, I don't know why it was surprising: we live two blocks from a square mile of forested park, but I've never seen hawks here in my residential neighborhood.
Yesterday as I was taking the Things on a routine walk to excrete and check their p-mail, I saw a red-tailed hawk in the top of a tall tree in the front yard of a house. It flew away, and another flew into the same tree. At least one of them seemed to be carrying a stick in its mouth; nesting pair? In retrospect, I don't know why it was surprising: we live two blocks from a square mile of forested park, but I've never seen hawks here in my residential neighborhood.
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I wonder if the psittacids are escaped (or freed) pets? It seems very unusual for them to be in New York...
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Not unusual at all--Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood has had monk parakeets for years. The Bklyn/Queens colony (known in our neck of the woods as Quaker parrots, or Quakers, allegedly got their start when a few birds escaped at JFK in the 1960s.
Quakers are "herd-minded" by nature, building huge communal nests (in which their shared body heat enables them to survive harsh Northern winters). They are also a noisy, messy invasive species which has been known to wreak havoc on electrical power lines and the like. Much as I like critters, I wish these birds would stay the h3ll away....
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