Monk parakeet makes a rare visit to The Express-Times region
Sunday, April 1, 2012 at 1:38 
This monk parakeet recently visited Arlene Koch's backyard. At 5:15 Thursday afternoon a week ago, I was peeling potatoes at the kitchen sink and occasionally looking out at the backyard feeders. I've made a lot of planting mistakes through the years but I was much better at putting my bird feeders in the right places.
I knew that if I was going to maintain them properly and spend money for seeds, I certainly wanted to be able to easily see what was going on at them from the spots in the house I most frequent. And those spots are the area around the kitchen sink, the kitchen door window and in the living room recliner with a picture window view of the front yard.
When I was done peeling all the potatoes I scooped up the peels with my hand and nonchalantly looked out the window. But I immediately dropped the peels back into the sink and for a second thought I was hallucinating. There in an open hanging black oil sunflower feeder was a big light green bird with dark blue on its wings.
