Bay Ridge Parrots Face Uncertain Future

Two wild Quaker Parrots at Bay Ridge's Dust Bowl.

The wild parrots which have long lived around one of Brooklyn's last sandlot baseball fields, an area dubbed "The Dust Bowl," will soon face down a $3.2 million renovation of the field that will significantly alter their ecosystem. As reported in the Brooklyn Courier Life newspaper, the project, whose funding was secured by City Councilman Vincent Gentile, involves construction of a "secure synthetic multi-use field consisting of new dugouts, new accessible entrances, six new handicap-accessible drinking fountains and new synthetic turf" and is scheduled to begin this Fall. After completion, the Dust Bowl area will be off-limits to the public, and only be open to authorized sports teams supplied with keys.

While advocates for the project have claimed that steps will be taken to protect the wild parrots during construction, it is highly troubling that synthetic turf will now replace what has been a natural environment of sand and turf, upon which wild birds, including the parrots, regularly forage upon. Synthetic turf is made from recycled rubber tires, and physicians have already raised concerns that it becomes toxic under certain conditions. It cannot be known what long-term effects this will have on the local fauna, or, for that matter, the human population. Losing open access to the Dust Bowl, one of Brooklyn's last genuine "sand lot" fields, is also a concern. Why must humanity always insist on replacing something natural and wild with something artificial and sterile?

Photos: Bay Ridge 2008 Norwegian Independence Parade

This Sunday, May 18th, was a rainy day, which made it a poor day for photographing Brooklyn's Wild Quaker Parrots. But I ran smack into Bay Ridge's annual Norwegian Independence Day Parade, so I shot some pictures of some colorfully-clad humans marching joyfully through the wet streets. Enjoy!

-steve baldwin

If you can't see the embedded slideshow, you can browse the pix on the Flickr Set I created for this event by clicking here.


Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

Green Parrots and Irish Pride: It's the Annual Bay Ridge St. Patrick's Day Parade!

I'm part Irish and part parrot, so I always enjoy the annual St. Patrick's Day Parade which happens in Brooklyn a couple of weeks after the Manhattan parade. The parade happens tomorrow (March 30, 2008), its official site is here; the weather should be good, and here's a video I shot of the 2007 parade. Enjoy!

Brooklyn Parrots Survive Devastating Tornado!

Yesterday's Brooklyn Tornado devastated Bay Ridge's Leif Ericson Park, the home of a flock of wild Quaker Parrots.

A freak category EF2 tornado devastated parts of Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, yesterday. While no one was killed, the storm damage was extensive. Naturally, I wanted to see whether Bay Ridge's famous wild parrots survived the terrific storm, which boasted 135MPH winds.


This morning, I walked East past Leif Ericson's Park. The damage to trees was terrible, and I was very concerned that the parrot nests on the East side of the park might have been wrecked as well.


Some of the downed trees were 100 years old. Parks Commissioner Adrian Benepe was quoted as saying the park "looked like it was the site of a World War II artillery battle."


Fortunately, the tornado veered off before reaching Leif Ericson Park's "dust bowl" ball field, where the parrots live.


I immediately heard parrot calls: here a bird lands on one of the communal nests.


The parrot nests appear to have survived the tornado with no damage. You can see why these parrots prefer steel pole nests to tree nests!


I counted about 18 parrots in the area. They appeared to be uninjured and were carrying on normally, foraging, squawking, and doing light nest renovations. The parrots had survived the tornado with nary a ruffled feather!

Video Clip: Bay Ridge St. Patrick's Day Parade 2007

I took a short break from my wild parrot-hunting activities last Sunday to shadow the annual Bay Ridge St. Patrick's Day Parade. This parade may not be as big as the parade that happens a week earlier in Manhattan, but it's got real Brooklyn heart and soul.

Of course, amidst all the antique police cars, marching bands, and pipers I snuck in a shot of an extremely Leprechaun-like green Quaker Parrot surveying the passing parade from his lofty perch at Bay Ridge's "Dust Bowl." Enjoy!

Portions of this clip will certainly be making their way into the Brooklyn Parrots Motion Picture, coming soon to a birdcage near you.

Photo-Essay: Brooklyn's Sandlot Parrots

Two "Sandlot Boids" enjoy some grooming (male on left, female on right) at the ballfield.

Brooklyn has always loved baseball, and its sandlot baseball fields are legendary places where, on any Saturday and Sunday during the Spring and Summer, you can witness some unforgettable, unorganized ball. In November, the sandlot fields are quiet and almost melencholy places, unless you happen to notice the Quaker Parrots cheerfully strutting their wild parrot stuff. The parrots love the sandy grit of the fields, which helps them digest.

Nice uniforms, boys and girls!

(Note: I'd tell you exactly where this sandlot is but I don't want to tip off any poachers. E-mail me privately if you want further details.)


All, the joys of a Brooklyn sandlot baseball field in November! What's to enjoy? Well, parrots need a bit of "grit" to digest their food, and the sandlot has plenty of sandy grit to help them out.


By my count, the parrots at this particular sandlot number number five nesting pairs. This parrot, whose feathers look particularly fresh, appears to be a recent arrival (some of the other parrots look downright grungy by comparison, a fact that's not particularly strange, given the number of smoke-belching diesel trucks which pass by within a few yards of their nests.


As always, a watchful parrot is on "guard duty," guarding his fellows against threats. Like vigilant New Yorkers urged to "Say something if they see something," this parrot will issue a special alarm call to warn his fellows of any approaching danger.


These three strolling parrots might be too involved in grit-eating to notice an approach of a predator.


Fortunately, the ever-vigilant Sentinel Parrot raises the alarm instantly (in this case, the alarm was just a truck backfiring, causing the birds to flee. But the Quaker Parrots' Sentinel Alert System (TM) is a crucial defense which these wild parrots deploy against predators, both human and non-human, which stalk them in Brooklyn.

Tough Parrots...

A tough-looking Brooklyn Parrot surveys his "Dust Bowl" home in Bay Ridge.

I'm continually amazed at how tough these parrots are, and once in a while, I come up with a photo that captures their inner resilence. This tough-looking monk parrot was spied in Bay Ridge, on Saturday, May 6th. With his back to the truck traffic spewing dark clouds of toxins into the air above the avenue, this tough guy has the blown-about, determined, damn-the-torpedos look of a seasoned Brooklynite who's endured his share of nicks, dents, cheap shots, and lost chances, but refuses to say Uncle.

This bird knows, because he's been around the block, that this life might not be much to write home about, but that it beats all available alternatives, and that although he and his wild pack of illegal avians doesn't really belong in Brooklyn, they'd belong a heckuva lot less somewhere else. So he takes his lumps, gets a laugh when he can, and makes the best of it.

For more on the Wild Parrots of Bay Ridge, see:

brooklynparrots.com/2006/01/squawking-at-moon-wild-parrots-of-bay.html
brooklynparrots.com/2005/09/photo-essay-wild-parrots-of-bay-ridge.html

Photo-Essay: Brooklyn's 8th Avenue Parrots

On a chilly morning in February, a bird from the "8th Avenue Gang" soaks up some sunshine.

Brooklyn's 8th Avenue Parrots are a small but hardy crew of monks who live less than 100 yards from the Gowanas Expressway at the intersection of 8th Avenue and 72nd Street. They live in a classical pole nest built under a Con Ed transformer sited in a tiny park called Anthony Mondello Triangle.

The 8th Avenue Parrots are often active in the late morning, gathering twigs for nest construction from the trees planted along the Gowanus Expressway. But sometimes they unaccountably vanish. Often, they spend time visiting their relatives to the North based in Leif Ericson Park.

As we've documented elsewhere on this site, it's a fact that Brooklyn Parrots love pizza, so I found it less than coincidental that these parrots decided to build their nest across the street from an Italian restaurant.

How long have the 8th Avenue Parrots been on the scene? According to a friendly employee of the restaurant, "at least five years." Where did they come from? My guess is that they are a spin-off "satellite" of the main wild parrot colony in Leif Ericson Park.

Without further ado, here are some photos of the 8th Avenue Parrots taken in February, 2006. Please click on any image for an expanded view.


The 8th Avenue Parrots live in a classic pole-nest chosen by the birds because of the warmth given off by its transformer. This view is looking West; the trees at the rear of this view are planted along the Gowanas Expressway.


The best place to get action shots of the 8th Avenue Parrots is actually on 7th Avenue, directly below the trees used by the parrots to provide construction materials. But be very careful: cars often speed down this strip and there's no sidewalk to offer a photographer much protection.


An 8th Avenue Parrot glides into the pole nest with a good looking thorny twig in his beak.


A moment later, he's working the twig into the nest structure.


Another bird comes in with another twig. Watching these little birds work is an inspiring experieence.


Heave Ho!


Many beaks make light the work on 8th Avenue.


But the 8th Avenue Parrots pace themselves, and are more than willing to take a short snuggle break to add variety to their long workdays.

BrooklynParrots.com Moves to Brooklyn

I am happy to say that after many months of wandering, BrooklynParrots.com has now formerly moved to Brooklyn; specifically the Bay Ridge section of Brooklyn, home to a significant flock of wild parrots and within striking distance of all the major flocks in this wild, wild borough.

I've lived in Brooklyn before; back in the 1980's, when, it seemed, it was rare that a day went by without a drive-by shooting happening on a nearby street. I went to high school here, at a school called St. Anne's, in Brooklyn Heights. I've had girlfriends who lived in Brooklyn; some were angels, some were -- well, we won't go there. I've seen the best and worst of humanity in this borough; and as much as I've tried to flee Brooklyn, something always drew me back.

Little did I suspect that it would be a bunch of little green refugees from Argentina that would convince me to return to this place. How long will I stay? Only time will tell. But I'd like to think that if Brooklyn has room in its heart for "the world's most persecuted parrot," there will be room here for me too.

Squawking At the Moon: The Wild Parrots of Bay Ridge (Revisited)

I visited the wild monk parrots of Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, in the summer of 2005 but was never satisfied with the photos I took. My trusty film camera was showing its age and the parrots were elusive, so I charged back in early January, 2006, with digital camera in hand. The parrots were out in force, and I got some credible pix. I plan to keep close tabs on this fabulous flock, which is lucky to live in one of Brooklyn's most interesting neighborhoods. (Click on any picture for an enlarged view).


The Bay Ridge Parrots are an industrious bunch who work tirelessly through the day to upgrade their dwellings.


The parrots nests are in large stadium light fixtures positioned around the athletic field known as "The Dust Bowl." It's uncanny how much this scene resembles that in Brooklyn College and in the Bronx. The high stadium light poles, built of Corten steel, provide an unbeatable substructure for expansive nests that can house up to 12 parrots in each fixture.


Trees around the field provide a convenient supply of nest materials. Let's examine this intrepid Brooklynite as she begins work on a formidable looking twig.


Good work, kid: you're nearly there!


With a snap the twig is turned into raw material for a wild parrot condominium.


Now it's time to make like a hummingbird and airlift that fresh-cut lumber to the construction site.


The trees don't just provide construction material for nests. This one is packed with calorie-packed leaf buds, which the parrots depend upon to survive and thrive through the chilly abyss of a New York winter.


I imagine this pensive Bay Ridge parrot might be speculating that the same moon above him is beaming down on his long-lost relatives in the pampas of Argentina.

He's so far from home, in such a strange jungle of stone, yet I'd like to think he's glad to be living in Brooklyn, because there's likely a future for his hardy band of immigrant avians here.

Photo-Essay: The Wild Parrots of Bay Ridge

Leif Ericson Park is a 16-acre public park packed with lots of recreational facilities for humans, and plenty of wild parrots (notice the large stick nest built on the utility pole in the background).

Note: 7/26/06: Since I wrote this essay last year, I upgraded my camera, got some much better pictures of the Bay Ridge parrots and created a short sequel called "Squawking at the Moon: The Wild Parrots of Bay Ridge." Enjoy!

Leif Ericson was a pioneering Norwegian explorer who discovered America many years before Columbus, so it's only fitting that the Brooklyn Parrots chose Brooklyn's Leif Ericson Park to establish a pioneering avian community miles to the west of their original colony in Midwood.

Both the precise date of the parrots' arrival in Leif Ericson Park and the means by which they found it remain a mystery. One correspondent reports that the parrots have been in Bay Ridge for the last four years, but it's possible that the birds set up camp earlier and weren't identified for some time.

So how did they get to Bay Ridge? Well, I speculate that they discovered Bay Ridge while exploring the greenbelt of wild foliage which follows the route of the railroad which runs through Brooklyn and forms a "greenway" link between Bay Ridge and Brooklyn College. This railroad, originally the Bay Ridge Branch of the Long Island Railroad, is still in use, and is famed for being traversed by Elvis Presley at the time of his induction into the Army. It provides a wild, leafy, and unobstructed path perfect for the migration of "charismatic megafauna" such as wild urban parrots. When one smart bird spotted the stadium light poles (of very similar design to those at Brooklyn College), it was a simple matter of applying some time, effort, and the monk parakeet's hard-wired "weaving instinct" to produce the large nests we see today.


The park includes a popular sandlot baseball field (dubbed "The Dust Bowl"), tennis courts, a basketball area, a playground, and a park area with many wild plants. The wild parrots have built large twig nests in four of the six large stadium light fixtures that surround the baseball field.


Two alert parrots in the stadium light pole nest scan South Brooklyn's sky for predators.


Four wild Brooklyn Parrots enjoy foraging with other urban birds at the East end of Leif Ericson Park.


Both sides of Leif Ericson park are adorned with beautiful old trees enjoyed by at least four species of birds.


A svelt wild parrot struts his stuff on the iron railing at the East end of Leif Ericson Park.


Pigeons, starlings, sparrows and starlings all seem to get along well in Leif Ericson Park. Here, they're foraging for bread and bagel fragments donated by a caring neighborhood resident.


Two wild Bay Ridge parrots peer down curiously at the photographer from a tree adjacent to the tennis courts.


Parrots squawking, talking, and flying free at one of the stadium light poles surrounding "the Dust Bowl".

Leif Ericson Park appears to include all the elements required for a successful wild parrot colony in an urban environment: sturdy and defensible nest platforms, trees perfect for gathering nest construction supplies, a source of water in the form of several water fountains and an active playground sprinkler, a ready supply of year-round food in the form of people who feed birds scraps of food, and the presence of three other urban bird species: pigeons, starlings, and sparrows, which collectively constitute a large, heterogenous flock providing cover for individual birds.

If you want to visit Leif Ericson Park, you can get there very easily by subway. Just take the N train to either 8th Avenue or Fort Hamilton Parkway and walk several blocks South. The parrots’ activity level is somewhat unpredictable: I’ve seen lots of squawking and ground foraging at noon on certain days, but when I’ve come by at the same time on a successive day, no parrots have been seen (perhaps they’re visiting their cousins a few miles away in Midwood). But even when the parrots seem scarce, there’s more than enough to do and see to make a visit to this park an enjoyable experience.



"Bay Ridge is for Lovers!" would certainly be an appropriate caption for this close-up shot of a wild parrot nest whose occupants enjoy a bit of beak-to-beak trysting.