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Jul. 6th, 2022 10:49 amThere's a monk parakeet nest about a mile and a half from where I live. Quaker parrot. Whatever, it's the same thing- green birds that originated a lot farther south, escaped from being somebody's pets, and established themselves in the wild. They build great big shaggy nests that serve as colonial homes, sometimes in buildings, often on utility poles, and this nest is one of the latter kind. It's attached to an electrical transformer and it's almost as big as the transformer unit. Two parakeets built it some time back, May of 2021; the town took down the original nest, but the birds came back and built a new one, and nobody's removed it so far.
The thing about monk parakeets is that those huge shaggy nests are pretty solidly constructed and are good shelter against temperature and weather extremes. The parakeets were able to last out the winter. And they bred. There were two in 2021; yesterday I counted seven of them.
I also encountered several people who were looking up at the nest and speculating, and talked to one of them. Wound up answering a bunch of her questions about the birds- how long they'd likely been there, where they came from (almost certainly not migrating- I've seen signs in the area from at least one person who claimed to have lost a Quaker parrot), what they did in other parts of the country where I knew they lived, would human attention bother them (ahahaha no, the nest I saw in NJ was positioned above a high-traffic two-lanes-each-way road and next to a Whole Foods parking lot), things like that. I'd just come from a shorebird observation session at the beach, so I had my binoculars around my neck, but I was wearing a plain t-shirt and a pair of leggings that look like armor. She asked me if I was observing the birds for a living. Apparently she'd seen two older women who Really Looked Like Birdwatchers some time back- they'd brought binoculars or scopes or something and they were wearing multi-pocket vests and hats- but they thought the nest was empty and they left after a little while- and she said I was more knowledgeable than them. I told her it was just a hobby and that I was in the area every couple of days for the shorebirds, I just checked on the parrots every once in a while. She asked what I did for a living, and I told her it was an IT job at a finance firm in Boston. Apparently this constituted a suitably interesting job for somebody who Really Knew About Birds.
It occurred to me on the way home that I might be 48, but she was probably about twenty years older... and that since this was purely a hobby for me, and I got into slightly overenthusiastic talky mode, it was fundamentally That One Kid At The Science Museum Who's Telling The Adults All About The Dinosaurs They're Looking At. Just, you know. Aged up a little.
The thing about monk parakeets is that those huge shaggy nests are pretty solidly constructed and are good shelter against temperature and weather extremes. The parakeets were able to last out the winter. And they bred. There were two in 2021; yesterday I counted seven of them.
I also encountered several people who were looking up at the nest and speculating, and talked to one of them. Wound up answering a bunch of her questions about the birds- how long they'd likely been there, where they came from (almost certainly not migrating- I've seen signs in the area from at least one person who claimed to have lost a Quaker parrot), what they did in other parts of the country where I knew they lived, would human attention bother them (ahahaha no, the nest I saw in NJ was positioned above a high-traffic two-lanes-each-way road and next to a Whole Foods parking lot), things like that. I'd just come from a shorebird observation session at the beach, so I had my binoculars around my neck, but I was wearing a plain t-shirt and a pair of leggings that look like armor. She asked me if I was observing the birds for a living. Apparently she'd seen two older women who Really Looked Like Birdwatchers some time back- they'd brought binoculars or scopes or something and they were wearing multi-pocket vests and hats- but they thought the nest was empty and they left after a little while- and she said I was more knowledgeable than them. I told her it was just a hobby and that I was in the area every couple of days for the shorebirds, I just checked on the parrots every once in a while. She asked what I did for a living, and I told her it was an IT job at a finance firm in Boston. Apparently this constituted a suitably interesting job for somebody who Really Knew About Birds.
It occurred to me on the way home that I might be 48, but she was probably about twenty years older... and that since this was purely a hobby for me, and I got into slightly overenthusiastic talky mode, it was fundamentally That One Kid At The Science Museum Who's Telling The Adults All About The Dinosaurs They're Looking At. Just, you know. Aged up a little.
