Yankee Ingenuity Trumps Cruelty in Connecticut

Two surviving and formerly homeless Quaker parrots displaced by United Illuminating's wild parrot eradication campaign found safe haven in Julie Cook's artificial nest on January 18th, 2005. Photo by Joanne Smith.

During the darkest moments of the Connecticut Quaker Parrot Crisis of 2005, Julie Cook's example gave pro wild parrot activists strength. When United Illuminating came for the parrots she knew and loved in West Haven, she refused to step aside. Instead, she actively blocked the "death squad", and was promptly handcuffed, fingerprinted, and locked up for the night. Only after it was discovered that she had not been read her Miranda rights was Julie freed.

Two months later, a lot has happened in Connecticut. United Illuminating, pressed by a lawsuit, has temporarily stopped killing the parrots. Citizens are building artificial nesting platforms designed by Marc Johnson (see photos below). And yesterday: wonder of wonders, a pair of the displaced parrots decided to take up residence right in the artificial nest that Julie built in her yard: the first birds to do so in West Haven.

This development isn't just a beautifully poetic event for Julie and the birds she likely saved from the gas chamber. The success of artificial nesting platforms in Connecticut is likely to inspire further development of artificial nesting platforms - not by expensive consulting firms, well-endowed universities, or profit-through-the-roof energy companies - but by private citizens who love the birds and want to help them.

Last Saturday, I attended one of these grass-roots parrot nest building workshops, held in Fairfield. I hope to use these photos to generate, with Marc Johnson's help, a "how to build a wild monk parrot nest" e-book that can be freely distributed on the Web. In the meantime, here are some photos of the process: more info and a materials list are available at friendsofanimals.org.


9-foot sections of chicken wire are folded over, stuffed with hay and laid with twigs. This encourages the monk parrots to investigate the structure and help themselves to building materials.


4-inch PVC pipe, bonded into a channel, supports the main nest subassembly. The "walls" that will eventually support an upper "roof" are screwed in from below using a screw gun.


A view of the completed nest subassembly.


Marc Johnson attaches chicken wire to the nearly completed nest subassembly. The chicken wire gives the wild Quaker Parrots a surface into which they can easily weave thorny twigs.


The nest subassembly is "rolled" across the 9-foot "chicken wire stuffed with twigs and-hay" assembly. Excess is clipped using wire cutters.


Twigs are used to create nest entrances characteristic of those engineered by Quaker Parrots.


Excess chicken wire is stapled to the wooden underside of the main nest subassembly.


Seven nest assemblies were completed last Saturday in one 4-hour work session. They were shipped to West Haven for installation on private property, where, it is hoped, parrots will want to move into them.



A wild monk parrot in Connecticut guarding his human-engineered "monk bunker" against hostile forces from the USDA and United Illuminating. Photo credit: Marc Johnson


An early 2006 view of "Monk Bunker Alley" in West Haven, Connecticut. Photo credit: Marc Johnson