Monk Parakeet
Myiopsitta monachus · Parrots
Monk Parakeet
Staten Island, 5 July 2026
A Monk Parakeet on a dead branch on Staten Island, open water and a sandy shoreline behind it - a beach setting rather than the cemetery trees the city's colonies are usually associated with. Native to temperate South America, and established in feral colonies across parts of the United States, New York among them, from escaped cage birds in the 1960s and 70s.
Monk Parakeets are the only parrot that builds a stick nest rather than nesting in a cavity, and the nests are communal: one structure, added to year after year, can house dozens of pairs in separate chambers and get heavy enough to bring down the pole or tree it is built on. Brooklyn's best-known colony lives in the gates of Green-Wood Cemetery.
Birds, insects, plants and other wildlife, mostly from Brooklyn, with some from further afield.
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