Happy New Year!

Click to enlarge. 

My creature of the year award for 2015 goes to the neighborhood favorites -- Brooklyn's monk parakeets!

The monk parakeet, Myiopsitta monachus, is also called Quaker parrot or parakeet and a few other names. (Click here to read a previous blog about the birds). There are colonies of them in Queens and Manhattan and elsewhere in New York City, but my favorite flock lives in the gothic revival spires of the gatehouse at Brooklyn's famous Green-Wood Cemetery.

No one expects these birds: they're noisy, they're flashy, they're big and green. Congratulations to Green-Wood's monk parakeets for being among the coolest wildlife in the city.

The gatehouse at Green-Wood. 

Twig nests and parrots. 

Parakeets

A few of Brooklyn's monk parakeets. Click to enlarge. 

I stopped by Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn this week to visit the locally famous parakeets. This group flew over and landed by me, sat and squawked for a while, and then flew deeper into the cemetery. Monk parakeets have been around Brooklyn for about forty years; the colony at Green-Wood is one of the largest in the city. I wrote a long blog about them a while ago; click here to read it.

Brooklyn's Monk Parakeets

A pair of monk parakeets, Myiopsitta monachus. 

Brooklyn’s famous Green-Wood cemetery invites one to take a meditative stroll. Lanes and cobbled paths lace Green-Wood's hills, leading past gothic mausoleums, ancient beeches, civil war monuments, statues of draped urns, obelisks, cherubs, stone angels in  poses of grief, weeping trees, and bronze dogs in sad attitudes on tomb steps.  The cemetery is famous for its pastoral beauty; it was landscaped to inspire reverie and to promote communion with nature. Green-Wood opened in 1838 and is still a working cemetery. 

Green-Wood cemetery is a quiet spot in Brooklyn. 

The gates at the main entrance to Green-Wood cemetery.

But there is an unexpected cacophony near the towering gothic revival gates at the front entrance. Quak! Quaki! Quak-Wi! Quarr! Kurr! Chape-Yee! Skveet! Quak Quaki Quaki-wi Quarr! And the source is really surprising, given that we are in the heart of Brooklyn. It's parakeets! Big green and blue parakeets!

A closer look at the ornate spires of the cemetery gate reveals extensive nests of sticks tucked into the crevices. And the chattering birds are always adding to and improving the communal nest.

A pair of parakeets watches from a high perch. The growing stick nest is tucked into cracks and crevices on the ledges below them.

The monk parakeet is about a foot long. It is green overall with yellow-green on the belly and lower back. Its forehead, cheeks, throat, and breast are gray. Its bill is pale pink.  There are bright blue feathers in the wings and tail.

So what are they doing here? Like lots of other Brooklynites, they immigrated. They are native to South America (from Boliva and southern Brazil south to central Argentina). Many were imported to North America as pets. Some escaped and others were deliberately released. The rest was up to them. Because they are from parts of South America with cold temperatures, they are able to survive New York winters. They have also established colonies in other American cities, and in Puerto Rico, Bermuda, the Bahamas, and even in Europe, Israel, and Japan.

A few of Green-Wood's birds have started nesting at the power station across the street from the cemetery -- at the corner of 24th street and 5th avenue.

Stick nests around the bases of insulators at the power station.

Home sweet insulator. 

Monk parakeets are also called Gray-headed parakeets, Gray-breasted parakeets, Quaker parakeets, and Quaker Conures. By any name, they are established in New York and likely to stay.