Several colonies of brightly-colored Quaker Parrots, also known as Monk parakeets, have taken up residence in Bergen County towns along the Palisades. The tropical birds have flourished year-round in large nests built in treetops and utility poles. Image by S.P. Sullivan
EDGEWATER — One of the unique sights the denizens of the New Jersey Palisades become accustomed to is the quick flash of green overhead — a tropical parrot joining his flock in the trees.
The wild parrots of Edgewater have joined the pantheon of New Jersey legend with a feature in Weird New Jersey, and of course have their own Facebook page for admirers to keep tabs on them.
But they also present a unique problem for the region's utility, PSE&G, with their preference for utility poles as nesting sites. Crews finished work Wednesday removing some of those nests from poles in Edgewater, Fort Lee and Leonia, the company said.
There are plenty of origin stories for the Quaker parrots, also known as Monk parakeets, the most common being that they escaped from John F. Kennedy airport in New York during the delivery of a shipment of exotic birds in the 1970s.
They're originally from South America, but live in a "temperate zone" climate not dissimilar enough from northern New Jersey to cause problems for the birds, Alison Evans-Fragale, who heads the Edgewater Parrot Society, told NJ.com earlier this year.
They're now a common sight in communities along the Palisades, with their large, globular nests sitting in neighborhood trees.
But they also build their homes on utility poles, often beneath transformers and other equipment, drawn in by the warmth it generates. Kristine Snodgrass, a spokeswoman for PSE&G, said the nests can reduce airflow around the equipment, which can become dangerous over time.
"When there's a lot of demand and the equipment heats up, there's no circulation," she said. That can lead to short-circuiting and outages — a four-hour outage in Leonia, Englewood Cliffs and Teaneck in December was attributed to a Quaker nest, Snodgrass said.
So twice a year, the utility obtains permits from the state Division of Fish and Wildlife to dismantle the nests built around the utility poles, in hopes that the birds relocate to nearby trees. In the spring, the work is timed between the post-winter thaw and the bird's nesting season in April, so that there aren't eggs in the nests when crews take them down.
Because the birds are non-native, they're technically considered a "potentially dangerous species" by the state — a designation the Edgewater Parrot Society has been working for years to remove.
The group said on its Facebook page this week that the recent removal work by PSE&G had gone smoothly.
"The wild Quakers will now spend the next few weeks frantically re-building in an effort to have a place to call home in time for the breeding season," they wrote. "Kudos to PSE&G for their humane efforts on behalf of the wild Quaker Parrots."
Click here to see more images of the birds in Egewater, Fairview and Cliffside Park.