Wild Parrots of Brooklyn

Wild  Parrots  of  Brooklin,  the  ULTIMATE  eclectic  subject  for  a  sleepy  Saturday.   Thanks  so  much,  John  Peterman,  I  really  didn't  want  to  debate  if  in  fact  gravity  bends  light,  but  I  do  want  to  hang  with  my  virtual  friends.....    Forraging  for  more  dark  roast,  we  all  have  our  own  addictions.....lol

Wild Parrots of Brooklyn - go figure.
 
One of our daughters and her husband has a beautiful parrot.  They bought her, Calle is her name, as a baby and as she's grown, she's gotten more and more beautiful.  Interestingly parrots start to mimic sounds much like human babies do; not getting it quite right at first.  My daughter's husband, when he came home at night, would go over to Calle and say "Whatcha doin'?"; she started saying: "wha wha whatcha doin"?  Really cute.  Though our daughter also has a cat and a dog, the parrot hasn't barked or meowed yet -- they have their own language and, they leave each other alone never viewing each other as prey. 
 
I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas.

Such a place for me was called Lindsay Mill, up the road a piece, where the road from Rabbit Skin Gap and Possum Hollar converged. There as a boy, I could yell my name and the hills would always answer me back.  Now on my few acres on a quiet street between the lake and a little creek, I can build a fire and throw a steak on a grill and smoke a cigar in peace.  Brooklyn has its parrots, I have a family of red fox and a groundhog who walks around erect and regal. Why any animal including the ones with opposing thumbs like us end up anywhere is a mystery? 

I've been following your vitural community now for a couple of weeks and must say it's certainly one of the brightest spots of most days!  Watching the snow come down, and come down, and still come down prompted me to come to your "door" today with my coffee and say hello!

Good morning EyEsters and welcome Carol.

I wish we had your snow....we got the rain; Buckets and buckets of rain.

The annual family Christmas oyster roast was moved into a tent on our deck. Dinner and oysters for 50 or so of our closest friends and family has been an annual tradition for us for the past 20 years or so.

The tow truck is here pulling cars out of the mud. Interesting, since we live on top of a "sand hill".

 
Carol,

There is still some apple pie. Care for a piece?

Along Galveson Bay there are parrots (and have been for decades).  They love to nest in the high tension wires and are NOT beloved by the power company which has to get them out, hundreds of feet in the air.  But they're cute.  (Don't tell the folks in San Leon I said that, please!!!)

Wild parrots of Brooklyn.When I worked back in 1964 at the Pan Am cargo dept. bldg #81 at Idlewild (now JFK) we received a shipment of parrots. There was a huge hole in one of the boxes and it was obvious that some of the birds had escaped. Would it be funny to see these off springs of the escapees nowadays in Brooklyn?

These parots like to hang out in Sunset Park.  They seem to congregate in groups of three or four.  

Two true parrot stories from (different) customers.... there was one that successfully mastered the sound of the squeaking screen door, leading to several anxious moments late at night when NO one was supposed to be 'coming into the house'....  And then there was the one that mastered their dog's bark.  Again this proved 'problematical'.  (Dogs don't bark continuously just to hear themselves bark).   I wouldn't dare own a 'smart' parrot:  I'm thinking of the microwave oven alert, the stove timer, my pager and my cellphone, just for starters!

And, finally, before we all head off for a day at NASA with the 3-1/2 year old, the young lady in her 20s who was paid by her wealthy California parents to move to Texas.  She bought (...dad bought...) a 7,500 square foot house, and she brought along her collection of at least a dozen parrots (along with two sports cars worth as much as my house!)  Did you know that parrots, left to fly about a house freely like to chew on kitchen cabinet wood, bannisters made of wood, crown molding if they can grab ahold, etc?  I'm thinking those parrots were worth about $40,000 each in terms of 'dimished values' they inflicted on this innocent dwelling..... She should have just brought in termites.....

These parrots don't seem too noisey.  I wonder if they are drawn to the areas where they hear a familiar lhumab sounds.  They are not all over Brookyn.  They seem to flock to certain areas where there is a lot of musical noise pollution. The  Brooklyn College area is where you can hear calpypso music and caribean rythmns in the street .  Greenwood Cemetery boarders an avenue with salsa clubs.  It is also famous for people playing guitar and sing in the evening. They're not professionals, they're just the teenagers from Winsdsor Terrace   practicing where most people can't hear them. 
 
I wonder if the birds there is a musical note that only these parrots can hear that draws them to Brooklyn.     

JULIA MASI:
 
It sounds like they may be drawn to the sounds they might have heard in their native surroundings.
 
Genetics surfacing again?

A really nice little piece of magic to think about on this beautiful day after Christmas.
 
"A Parrot Thrives in Brooklyn..."

Korthal~ You are probably right!
 
Bebe~ They're cute but they're picked up the behavior of the local street gangs, pecking through  wires and messing up the tv signals.
 
 

No parrots around here, (Pittsburgh, PA) but we do have a family of Peregrine Falcons* living atop one of our skyscrapers. In addition to these birds, we have hawks & eagles living in the parks & on the bluffs, and coyotes & deer living in the wooded areas behind the cemetaries. In summer, cottontail rabbits play with the squirrels. Spring brings the orioles, bluejays, robins, and cardinals. Year round, we have pigeons, sparrows, crows, and wild turkeys. Other than the deer, the people around here really aren't too bothered by the animals and seem to enjoy them. In fact, some people are so bothered by the deer, that not a year goes by that some jackass doesn't get himself arrested for shooting a deer within city limits. And it's not the fact he shot the deer, it's the fact he used a high-powered rifle or shotgun. Hatred of deer tends to make some people lose control of their common sense.
 
* http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3B-oYzHA5l8
 

I love falcons!  And the glove for handling them is so cool.  Its a great accessory that looks beautiful on a Peterman hacking jacket.   There are some beautiful Peregrine Falcons in Prospect Park but no wild parrots in that neighborhoodl. 
 
 

I've always watched birds of all kinds since I was a child. To see their feathery bodies taking flight was always an amazing sight for me to behold (some more graceful than others). ALthought I never considered myself a birdwatcher Sitting on the porch is the best vantage point. Nature at it's best.
Today is a winding (to change direction, to turn the course of) down of sorts. Christmas is over and the New Year is looming. What to do? What to do?

A nice story for a happy season.... (The trip to NASA aborted shortly after liftoff when the 3-1/2 year old got carsick and vomited all over his booster seat... oh well).... But back to the nice story.   Eagles have returned to the Texas Gulf Coast.  And just as they started returning, I was driving (this must have been 15 years ago!) to Eagle Lake, Texas, across the flat coastal plain.  Before proceeding, let it be noted that Eagle Lake is famous (?) as 'The Goose Hunting Capital of the World'.  At least that's what a large sign says as one approaches town.  BUT, on my way towards this isolated village, I looked out to my right and saw a pair of some kind of large birds on the ground.  (In those days I carried a binoculars and a bird book when I drove the long distances 'out of town'.)  Out came the binoc's, and out came the bird book.  Vultures?  Definitely not.   Buzzards?  Nope.  Perhaps karankawas (aka Mexican eagles?).  Not quite right.  And then one of them turned profile view to me.  Bald eagles!!! Two of them!!! Eating the remains of some poor critter in the field!!!  And that was the day I first saw a bald eagle....  I've seen more since (in Yellowstone a few years after that, for example), but the fact I'd spotted TWO bald eagles in an area where they were not found -- and less than 70 miles from my home -- was a great thrill.  The memory of goosebumps still lingers.... 

http://www.texasescapes.com/CentralTexasTownsSouth/Eagle-Lake-Texas.htm

from this day... every day will be Boxing Day!                                                                                                              http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_SkpK1GSEws

San Francisco has parrots in Telegraph Hill.  There was a film made of them and the man who took care of them.  He ended up marrying the film maker.
 
I have a parakeet who  must be at least 15.  He likes to "call" or yell back and forth with the crows that are outside.
 
I live on a tidal creek with lots of egrets, herons, ducks and once in awhile a hawk or an owl.  It's lovely.
 
Well, back to the dishes,

12 inches of still falling snow in my backyard,3 male cardinales in the tree,waiting for their turn at the feeders...gonna go blow snow and refill the feeders.

I have a client that had parrots and let them run "free" throughout the house.   They ate everything.

  
Speaking of falcons, it was enjoyable for a few years to watch the peregrine that operated from the southwest corner of the orthopedic hospital on 3rd Avenue and 17th Street in Manhattan.

When she went into a power stoop toward Stuyvesant Square, two hundred birds would do the only thing that put them all at risk... fly.

At days end, one hundred and ninety-nine of them could be forgiven for believing that the strategy worked. "Anybody seen Leo?"


Though blue jays are not uncommon in our town, they are seldom seen on our side of it and never at feeders.

And yet, the undeniable feathery remains of one were found beneath our feeders.

If he were the advance man sent ahead to ascertain the safety and cordiality of the area, I guess the best conclusion that could have been drawn was... 'uncertain.'

A huge Blujay challenges the squirrles for the seeds and nuts I put out for them. I get them in bulk from Fisher Nut Co. They have a plant here,and put out there overdate and sweepings for bird/animal feed,cheap (cheep?;)I put it in an old teapot which is round,with a large hole in the top...that way they can't get their whole body in,so no,eh,leavins...in the food. I set it into a space under the picnic table, the center support the has the hole for the umbrella,and so the squirrels can't easily dislodge it(they did once)...they scatter seed detritus under the table,and the sparrows and other assorted birds feast there, as well as the twin feeders filled with oiled sunflower seeds and those flax seeds that they scatter....the squirrels feast on that detritus....I have three pairs of Cardinals,18-24 sparrows,2 different kinds of woodpeckers,little black and white downys,and red headed giants,and finches at their own feeder of finch food. Sometimes there are little crow looking birds that desend in packs,and some morning doves that eat the dropped seeds...I hear owls,and I have seen bird parts that I assumed were cat induced....right now the snow is deeper than my dog is tall....