November 22nd, 2008 by Gypsy

An article (with a nice photograph) appeared on BrownStoner.com today showing a group of wild Quaker Parrots (AKA Monk Parakeets or “Brooklyn Parrots”) gathered in a tree in Park Slope. The subject also appeared in one of Brownstoner.com’s forum areas.

Just to be clear: the parrots that are appearing in Park Slope appear to be visitors from Sunset Park: their main nest compound is located in Green-Wood Cemetery but like many Brooklynites, they like to get around, and Park Slope is a great place to visit, given its many beautiful trees (wild parrots like to munch on leafbuds this time of year and throughout the winter). This has been going on for some time (see “Teenage Parrots Invading Park Slope?” for more information).

For more on the “Sunset Park/Park Slope Parrots,” see items related to the Green-Wood Cemetery Parrots.

November 19th, 2008 by Gypsy

LA GARITA DE ALAJUELA, Costa Rica (AP) — Endangered scarlet macaws born in captivity are reproducing in the wild for the first time on Costa Rica’s southern Pacific coast. Three-week-old scarlet macaw chicks sit in an incubator at the ZooAve center in La Garita, Costa Rica.

The ZooAve Center for the Rescue of Endangered Species has released 100 of the birds into the wild in the past decade. But biologists didn’t spot offspring until last year, biologist Laura Fournier said.

Since then, they have recorded 22 chicks born in the wild, and four more scarlet macaw couples have laid eggs, Fournier said.

The parrots once occupied all of Costa Rica. But hunting and poaching dramatically cut their population, and they are now found only in two national parks along the coast.

The biologists’ goal is for 200 birds to populate an isolated coastal area.

Chicks are hatched at the ZooAve center in La Garita, northwest of Costa Rica’s capital, San Jose. At 6 months, they take a 200-mile trip to the southern city of Golfito and then travel by boat to a beach and finally the isolated San Josecito conservation center, far from human settlements. There, they spend up to three months in captivity before being released.

The parrots, which live up to 80 years, can start reproducing at age 7. Of ZooAve’s 86 scarlet macaws, 54 are in the reproduction program.

Many parrots in the breeding program were confiscated by environmental authorities or turned in by their former owners. Some can’t leave the sanctuary because they don’t know how to survive in the wild.

“Many don’t even know how to feed themselves,” Fournier said.

November 14th, 2008 by Gypsy

A Wild Quaker Parrot on Guard at a Human-Built “Monk Bunker” in Connecticut. Photo by Marc Johnson

Thanks to the input of Quaker Parrot experts from the Wildlife Orphanage and Southern Connecticut State University, wild parrots displaced by an $88,000 light replacement project in Stamford’s Cummings Park will be able to use temporary “monk bunkers” while work proceeds, according to an article in the Stamford Advocate.

While it’s always traumatic to see these nests torn down, it’s great to see these projects being conducted at a time of year when the young have had time to fledge but before the onset of cold weather.

Even those supervising the teardown work have been impressed by the quality of the monks’ construction work, as evinced by the comment of Joseph Barbarotta, who noted that the monk parakeets “must have a head engineer” to produce such impressive structures. For this reason, Monk Parakeets are widely known as the Master Architects of the Bird World.

Thanks to Wynne Parry, the author of this story, for sending it our way.