Photo-Essay: Wild Parrots Feast and Fight in Brooklyn

Springtime in Brooklyn means lots of tasty leaf buds begin to blossom, attracting flocks of wild Quaker Parrots. At beautiful Green-Wood Cemetery, one of the best places to check out some serious feral parrot action is in some of its soaring chestnut trees. (Click on any photo for an enlarged view; also please check out my other Photo-Essays on the wild parrots).


This Horse Chestnut Tree (Aesculus Hippocastanum), native to Greece and Albania, stands just a few yards from where the wild Quaker Parrots (native to Argentina, Bolivia, Ecuador, and Brazil) have built their huge nest complex.


These wild Quaker Parrots are just getting ready to devour one of their favorite treats: wild Horse Chestnut blossoms.


Do horse chestnut blossoms have some mysterious aphrodisiac quality useful to the Quaker Parrots' pre-mating season rituals? Or are they just delightfully delicious?


Either way, these hungry parrots don't waste any time digging in.


Elsewhere in the Cemetery, there's a lot of arguing going on, and it's par for the course whenever you find wild Quakers undergoing their annual pre-mating season madness.


"Ouch - hey buddy, I wasn't looking at your gal the wrong way, was I?"


The parrots' rambunctious behavior occasionally interrupts their feeding.


But most birds simply enjoy the feast, and leave the noisy physical contact to the teenagers.