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.
It was, quite obviously, a tropical species, not a native bird. So I immediately opened the Sibley bird book that lives on my kitchen table and checked out the pages marked "parrots and their allies." The bird was an adult monk parakeet, which in retrospect I probably should've known right away, but it's been years since I saw them somewhere in southern Florida.
Monk parakeets are native to South American countries like Argentina and Brazil, but many have either escaped or been purposely released in different parts of this country. Amazingly, feral, meaning a domesticated animal that survives and becomes wild, colonies of them are established in many states, most of which are southern.
However, there are also healthy colonies in the northeastern states, including well-known nest sites in Edgewater, N.J. Many people versed on this subject believe that the Edgewater birds descended from ones brought into JFK Airport for the pet trade in the early 1970s, but I don't know if that's ever been proven or how it could be.
The feral populations that amaze me are the ones in Illinois where winters can be brutal, including one in Hyde Park, Chicago. Monk parakeets build huge stick nests that they often put on utility poles because of the warmth generated there. But many nests are in trees, and I have no idea how these tropical birds can survive the cold but apparently they do. For years wildlife agencies in many states have tried getting rid of them but a lot of these efforts have ceased.
The parakeet in my yard ate seeds and then went into the waterfall creek before flying out of sight. And when my husband David showed up I went outside to talk to him and heard it squawking loudly nearby. We quickly located it in the bare branches of a mulberry tree, making it one of the strangest backyard bird sightings I've ever had. And, no, this isn't an April Fool's joke.