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.

The wild parakeet population in the Tampa Bay area (which was HUGE, as you recall) has declined to almost nothing. No one knows for sure why. But since they were naturalized escapees who don't belong in that area, perhaps they finally just died out. They WERE amazing to see, but they also displaced a lot of native birds who couldn't compete with them for nesting spots. I was surprised to find out that they were almost gone, as usually exotics are nearly indestructible. I don't think there's been a decline in the Quakers, for instance. Curious! Marcia

Thanks, I never heard of these. I signed.

Carl Hiaasen wrote Hoot, a young adult novel about those burrowing owls in SE Florida. They made it a movie, too, but I didn't see it. I did read the book with my 12 y/o. (Hey, you're never too old for mom to read to you!) Kids work together to save an area of nests about to be destroyed by developers. It's very funny, he uses wit and irony to tell the story (and a few 4-letter words, FYI). Great for kids 12+ with an interest in environmental causes, and a sharp sense of humor. Good contemporary YA books. The characters and situations appeal even to kids who don't love to read (like my DS). They are "real" and have their dysfunctions. But they are motivated by a strong sense of right and wrong. Sorry, I took a tangent there. I do that when I've had coffee too late in the evening (and other time, too).