The monk/quaker parrots that were on our feeders last March graced us with their presence again yesterday.

My husband and I counted 23 of them scarfing down suet cakes and regular wild bird seed, in spite of the rain and the other birds' irritation at being bullied out of their dinners (except the one brave goldfinch on the thistle seed feeder!).

That's so cool! I've never seen any wild ones Those are great pics, thanks.

Those are neat pictures! I haven't seen them in the wild either.

Just read two posts in which people mentioned flocks of wild Quakers in Brooklyn, NY (in Helwa's topic about Cosmo's eggs, maybe?), which surprised me...

This month's Bird Talk mag. has a list of what U.S. states have banned them as pets, since there are so many wild ones and they're considered a pest to farmers. They certainly do go through a lot of bird seed & suet!

Wow, that's realy neat!

OMG! Wild ones?! Thats so cool! I wish we had wild parrots here.

Hi, Kila&Makena! Long time no see -- how are you?

My local nature center had a slideshow & lecture about Monk Parakeets last week. The most interesting points (i.m.o.) were:
-- their "true" name is Monk Parakeets
-- they can live up to 30 years
-- they tend to live in fairly urban areas (even in Argentina, much less the U.S.), though they do fly to farmers' fields to eat seeds (which is why they are such a problem for some areas)
-- the monks in the midwest U.S. all came originally from the Hyde Park area of Chicago (where President Obama & family lived until last week); supposedly a truck of these birds tipped over, some escaped, they adapted to northern Illinois winters, and they multiplied...

Oh wow! That is soo cool.I can't even imagine having parrots at my bird feeders..I think i'm jealous! LOL

That happened in southern California too. In 2000 when I started going to Crafton Hills College a large truck transporting several different parrots tipped over and they all got away. For the first 4 months or so they lived peacefully around the campus grounds and near by "untouched" land and orange groves. The monk parrot and I think Eclectus Parrots along with super tiny bright(almost neon looking) green and yellow finches were easily spotted. The finches stayed around the most, but the larger parrots seem to only migrate through now. Its an awesome sight to see, Im glad to see that for the most part they seem to be thriving enough to keep large flocks going. I live in Texas now and there are very few variety of birds to watch. There certainly are a lot of vultures around though.

Article from 12/5/08 about New Jersey monk parakeets ("don't you dis our parrots!" -lol!): http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/07/nyregion/new-jersey/07parrotsnj.html?_r=1