FDV,
The last time my Texas butt had to carry Show Cars into Javits Center, I heard a bunch of cussing going on aimed at me, I thought it was normal! But now, I think it was them Parrots calling me a STUPID ()&*%^$&()_
Yep, that is what I think?:-))))
Cecil

We have them and they tend to stay on the south side of town. It is normally much warmer there, particularly in the winter time. I live on the north side and have yet to see one over here. Much more like their native climate on south side. I know they are a pest in South Florida where they clean out the mango trees. Had no idea they would stay in New York. Would think the winters would kill them, but evidently they have adapted. My problem here is squirrels and opossums. The squirrels don't eat my figs or citrus, but eat everything else. The opossums eat figs when they are ripe, berries, etc...pretty much what the squirrels don't eat.

Kingwood,
If the squirrels ever try your White Tx Everbearing, then you can add squirrels to the critters that eat your figs too.
Cecil

Don't this beat all! Not only do I have to live with all the miserable, two-legged vermin, but now, I have to worry about flying thieves too. I can't get a break!! At least the parrots are doin' what comes natrually. I'll pray that they are too scared to land on the fig trees that I have growing on my back deck.

I've been told that these parrots are even up in Connecticut, and, are very hardy. Go figure!

Thanks for the laughs, ... hope you all get to taste your sweet figs before the animals get to them.

Not sure if this is the same type but here is an article i found, i furst heard of this last year that they were nesting. We can have some cold winters but they survuve.

The bird's squawk sounds like a cross between a chirp and the hee-haw screech of a rusty pump. Its bright green plumage clashes with the dignified church steeples and ivy-covered bricks of its Hyde Park neighborhood. For 22 years, feral monk parakeets have lived in this southern part of Chicago, draping their twiggy nests over tree branches, electrical poles, roof rafters, and satellite dishes. This raucous caucus of about 200 birds is the coldest, and perhaps the oldest, colony of monk parakeets in the United States. But should this species, introduced from South America, live wild in Illinois?
The monk parakeet, also known as the Quaker or gray-headed parakeet or parrot, was imported for the pet trade during the late sixties and early seventies. From 1968 to 1972, for example, more than 64,000 were brought to the United States from their native Argentina, Paraguay, and Bolivia. Since enactment of the Wild Bird Conservation Act in 1992, however, it has been illegal to import wild members of the species.

First seen locally at a Blue Island, Illinois, bird feeder in 1968, a pair of monks nested, hatched a few offspring, and disappeared in 1970. Three years later, a compound nest was discovered in Hinsdale. That same year, 1973, the Hyde Park colony got its start. The birds probably escaped from pet stores and residences, accord-ing to Stephen Pruett-Jones and other biologists at the University of Chicago who have studied the birds. The rumor that they escaped from a shipping crate at O'Hare has not been substantiated and was probably appropriated from New York, where an escape at Kennedy airport was documented in 1967. Some defenestrations may not have been accidental. Not everyone appreciates the birds' constant loud chatter, which consists of 11 kinds of shrill calls and whistles in addition to local sounds they imitate.

About a foot in length, slightly larger than a cockatiel, the monk parakeet is a flamboyant, highly social bird. The monastic reference in its scientific name, Myiopsitta monachus, derives from the hood of green feathers that covers its head and neck, set off by a gray face and yellowish breast. The rest of the bird, whether male or female, is chartreuse green except for its orange beak and a fringe of blue feathers on its tail and wings.

The Hyde Park colony has survived Chicago's nastiest weather, a significant feat since the bird originates in the temperate, dry lowlands of South America. This is the harshest climate the birds survive anywhere in the world, according to Pruett-Jones. They do exist further north, in Amsterdam and Paris, for example, and during the 1980s they bred in Montreal, but only in the Chicago area do they currently withstand windstorms and ice baths, rain, snow, hail, and temperatures far below zero.

Some farmers and conservationists wonder whether a bird that can adapt from Argentina to Illinois may become as common as the starling, which increased from 120 individuals to 200 million in a century, and wreak havoc with American crops as well as local species. Monk parakeets have fed on fields of wheat and corn in South America and fruit orchards in Florida.

Dieseler:

Thanks for taking all the time for posting all the very interesting information re: this parrot.

I had no idea that these birds were so widespread and adaptable. Your last posted paragraph is quite chilling to read. Fresh fruit may be a thing-in-the-past if these birds take over.

Thanks again for the information. I appreciate it. Frank

Quite a while ago, I heard/read that there was a colony
thriving up-north in the NE (MA/ME region) in some public
park. I guess they are moving south now (as the unbearable
Asian tiger mosquitoes already did). I have plenty of
them mosquitoes here in NJ, but no parrots (yet).

George (NJ).

>>>The parrots roost in the banks of outdoor lights,
>>>around power transformers, etc
Yep, that keeps them warm(er) in winter...
...and sometimes they do some damage.

Several years ago there was a colony of these birds living in Rehobeth, DE., but I don't know if they still exist.
I'm wondering how closely their habits resemble those of the now-extinct Carolina Parakeet. The last of these birds died in 1918 at the Cincinnati Zoo, where oddly enough the last passenger pigeon died in 1914.

The monk parakeets in Rehoboth Beach, DE seem to be gone. I used to see them every summer but 3 or 4 years ago I didn't see any and the nests all seemed to be abandoned. Lately even the nests are gone, and I haven't seen a single bird in several years.