City ParrotsUrban Scarlet Macaw & Parrot Conservation

The wild parrots of Brooklyn explained By Kiera Butler

If you think you’ve seen a wild parrot in Brooklyn, don’t worry—you’re (probably) not crazy: The borough is home to a few hundred Quaker Parrots (also known as Monk Parakeets). No one knows for sure how these clever little green birds made their way to New York City, but some trace their arrival back to a shipment of pet-store parrots that escaped from Kennedy Airport in the late sixties. These days, they can be found at Brooklyn College, in the Greenwood Cemetery, and in a few other spots around the borough. Read on…

Today we received a wonderful video from Carlos Esteban Lara Vásquez who studies the macaws of Medellin for us. The video was gracefully made available by Carolina Gomez. In the video you can see 5 macaws enjoying some fruit in a tree (Spathodea campanulata) after which they take flight. From the flight pattern you could deduct that their is one pair of Scarlet macaws (Ara macao). These are the birds that fly parallel and synchronised to each other. They are more loosely followed by what might be their offspring. This supports the notion that the macaws have been successfully reproducing within the city habitat. The two other birds are more loosely associated. One of the birds is a green-winged macaw (Ara chloroptera). The first of its kind to be recorded in Medellin!

Today we visited the parakeets of Haarlem (The Netherlands). Spring is in full swing for these birds and their breeding cycle well advanced.

There are two species of parakeet in Haarlem. The first and most numerous are the ubiquitous Ring-Necked Parakeets (Psittacula krameri). A species that is common in the Randstad area that joins The Netherlands mayor cities of Rotterdam, The Hague, Amsterdam, Haarlem and Utrecht in the west. These birds are joined by a closely related parakeet which can only be found wild in the Netherlands in Haarlem and Amsterdam: the Alexandrine Parakeet (Psittacula eupatria). Read on…

KEN DIXON

The United Illuminating Co. has completed its spring-cleaning program, ripping down monk parakeet nests from nearly 70 utility poles in southwestern Connecticut.

But these tenacious green birds, South American invasives that have lived in colonies along Long Island Sound’s coast since the early 1970s, are already rebuilding their stick homes as they head into their egg-laying season. Read on…

NEW YORK (AP) It’s an urban jungle, alright

Take a walk around the soccer field at Brooklyn College, and there, among the pigeons and starlings, you’ll see them - parrots. Yes, parrots. Bright green feathers, orange beaks, native-to-South-America parrots. Read on…

By Charles Clover, Environment Editor

A purge of the parakeets that have colonised parks and gardens in London, Surrey and Kent is being considered by the Government.

A study of the problems posed by 30,000 rose-ringed parakeets, originally from India and sub-Saharan Africa, has been commissioned by the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. Read on…

Chicago Chronicle by Katy Brandt

Alien invaders exist in Chicago; it’s a proven fact. They are little and green, and for the past four decades they have surveyed human life in the city from on high. Read on…

STLtoday by Theresa Tighe

A Quaker parrot named Bobber, who weighs less than a quarter pounder, rules the roost in my house. Every gram of bird is manipulative.

Right now, Bobber is feigning illness. He wants to go to the bird hospital, a place I call the spa. Life there includes sunning to music, high-class human and avian companions and superior food.

In the past, I bought him a new cage, a $150 mansion, big enough for him to take flight, a little, because he could dismantle the older, smaller one and knock his food all over the floor, even when the cage was reinforced with mailing tape. Read on…

By Alex Valk Northampton chronincle & Echo

BIRD lovers across Northamptonshire have been spitting feathers over the caging of Abington Park’s ringneck parakeets.
The Chronicle & Echo received dozens of calls and emails yesterday from people angry about Northampton Borough Council’s move to capture the birds, which have become part of the scenery at the beauty spot. Read on…

By Liz Lee - Northampton Chronicle

WILD parakeets discovered nesting in Abington Park, in Northampton, are being hunted by rangers to be caged in the park’s aviary. Read on…