Special "Double-Header" Wild Brooklyn Parrot Safari: Saturday, June 2nd, 2007

Wild quaker parrots perch in one of Brooklyn's famous trees. How did these birds get here? Well, it's a long story!

Attention all Urban Parrot fans: the next Wild Brooklyn Parrot Safari will happen on Saturday, June 2nd, 2007, at 12 Noon. All interested wild parrot fans should meet at Brooklyn College's Hillel Gate, which is at the intersection of Hillel Place and Campus Road.

Due to popular demand, our monthly tour will run an optional "second section." After getting our share of the raucous antics of the Brooklyn College Parrots, at approximately 2:00 PM, our group will walk to the Q Train stop at Avenue I, and journey to Green-Wood Cemetery, where we will observe the late-afternoon antics of the parrots residing there.

Brooklyn College is easy to get to via public transportation. Just take the Number 2 train (Seventh Avenue IRT) to the end of the line, walk one block Southwest on Hillel Street past the new Starbucks, and you're there. Allow some extra time, given that the MTA is doing lots of construction/train re-routing on weekends. Driving instructions are available at Brooklyn College's main Web site. Parking is fairly easy to come by in the neighborhood. If you're late, just call me: I'll give you directions so that you can meet up with us if the tour is already in progress.

If you like, bring binoculars, a photo ID, and a camera if you'd like to immortalize your wild parrot-watching experience. Please e-mail me if you want to attend, so I know how many folks are coming. Note: the "rain date" for this tour is Sunday, June 3rd, same time, same place.

This tour is free - if you want to help your urban peeps, bring some bird seed: trust me, the parrots won't soon forget the gesture.

See you in Brooklyn!

Steve Baldwin, Webmaster, BrooklynParrots.com
steve@brooklynparrots.com
646-361-2879 (phone)

Breaking News: Brooklyn's Wild Parrots Directly Related to Dinosaurs

Folks who keep Quaker Parrots as pets often refer to them as LGD's (Little Green Dragons). Now scientists who dug up and analyzed a bunch of old tyrannosaurus rex bones have reached a startling conclusion: the material in these old dinosaur bones is very similar to those found in modern birds. So it turns out that our favorite avian invaders have a proud lineage!

Video Clip: Wild Parrots in the Bronx!

I created a short 2-minute "virtual tour" of the impressive wild parrot colony living in Pelham Bay Park. This segment was recorded in mid-March, 2007. Enjoy! Portions of this video will be making their way into the Brooklyn Parrots Motion Picture.

For more info on wild Quaker Parrots in the Bronx, see:
Photo-Essay: The Wild Parrots of The Bronx!
Photo-Essay: Master Architects of the Bird World

Bronx Wild Parrots Bonkers for Berries
Monk Parrot Aggression!

New Wild Parrot Web Videos Coming Soon!

Just a quick note: I'm almost finished editing two new Wild Quaker Parrot videos. The first will focus on the wild parrots of the Bronx, the second will focus on some truly wild action we've seen recently at a bird feeder in South Brooklyn. When these are ready, I'll upload them to Youtube for all to enjoy. I'm also working on a video on the Bay Ridge parrots: the ETA for completion of this is April 15.

I'm really enjoying doing digital video now, although producing these mini-opuses takes a lot of time! But I think you'll find they are worth waiting for.

Video Clip: The Wild Quaker Parrots of Edgewater, New Jersey

Our film crew (consisting of one middle-aged human and three well-trained Quaker Parrots) was active over the weekend. On Saturday, we were in New Jersey, and were graced with cold but beautiful weather that let us shoot many elements which will be included in our forthcoming Wild Feral Parrot Epic. The resultant clip runs just under 5 minutes: it includes:

1. Views of several types of wild Quaker Parrot nests seen in New Jersey.
2. Views of the Quaker Parrots, conversing, flocking, and catching the winter sun.
3. Assorted winter snuggling (it was COLD on Saturday!)
4. Classic scenes of the Quaker Parrots fighting each other (you thought the Brooklyn Parrots were pugnacious: the Jersey Parrots are ferocious!)
5. A scene in which the Quaker Parrots' feeding is interrupted by a warning siren.
6. Close-ups of Quaker Parrots performing construction tasks.
7. Quaker Parrots eating snow, a wintertime delicacy which must be one of the true pleasures of any charismatic avian Argentinian expatriate living in the Northeast.

The arrival of wild parrots in Brooklyn is fairly well documented. But the appearance of parrots in the Garden State is highly mysterious. Did they fly from a barge? Break out of the Sea-Land Terminal located near the Lincoln Tunnel? Or bust out of a crate at Newark Airport, stopover at a cemetery in Hoboken and move to Edgewater in the 1990's? Everybody in Jersey seems to have a theory, and someday the truth may out.

Enjoy the incredible wild Quaker Parrots of Edgewater: these hardy urban parrots have made Edgewater a must-see place for anyone interested in wild parrot conservation today! (This clip, like just about every clip we upload, will be making its way into the forthcoming Brooklyn Parrots documentary film).

Video Clip: Wild Quaker Parrots in the Snow!

During the past week, New York was blitzed by a ferocious winter snowstorm, followed by several days of beak-chilling wind gusts that brought windchills down to sub-zero zones.

Before the wild parrots of Brooklyn entered my life, I would never have dared spend more than a few minutes exposed to this arctic cold. But today such weather fills me with an irresistable urge to go out and check up on my wild green pals. How are they faring in this brutal weather? How does winter modify their behavior? Do they become desperate when snow and ice covers their ordinary foraging grounds? Do they give up nest-building to simply hunker down in their high-rise "happy huts?"

This past weekend, dressed in six layers of clothing and armed with eight pounds of bird seed and a video camera, I sought to capture the wintertime antics of these hardy avian invaders, and have completed the first of two short video segments.

I hope you enjoy the strange sight of these remarkable urban parrots as they clamber over frosty snowdrifts to get a tasty, human-supplied meal - I froze my tail off shooting this clip!



This clip, like just about every clip we upload, will be making its way into the forthcoming Brooklyn Parrots documentary film.

Video Clip: Quaker Parrots Frolic in Freezing Cold!

Here's another video clip for Valentine's Day. It shows the amorous antics of two wild Quaker Parrots perching on a rusty fire escape in 15 degree February weather.

The clip opens with a female parrot perching alone: she is soon joined by her returning mate. After reintroducing himself, they do some serious beak-to-beak communcation. Later, the pair's juvenile arrives, and Mom and Dad "cool it" in deference to the youngster's adolescent sensibilities.

This clip, like just about every clip we upload, will be making its way into the forthcoming Brooklyn Parrots documentary film.

New York Times "Talking Parrot" Videos

Last summer, the New York Times sent a video crew to Brooklyn to interview Dr. Joseph Forshaw, who had made a stopover on his U.S. trip to see the wild parrots of Brooklyn. Although the Times has removed the original article from public view, the videos themselves are freely viewable; if you missed them, you can watch them here:

Talking Parrots: Part 1
Talking Parrots: Part 2
Talking Parrots: Part 3

Love Under an AC Unit

To commemorate Valentine's Day, here's a video clip of a pair of wild Quaker Parrots in Brooklyn who've set up a cozy home under an air conditioner. This affectionate pair does a bit of preening, and a fair share of snuggling, which happens a lot during the winter, because it's a great way to keep warm! This clip, like just about every clip we upload, will be making its way into the forthcoming Brooklyn Parrots documentary film.

Video Clip: Quaker Parrot Repels Starling

I've been watching wild Quaker Parrots living in the NYC area for two years now and have never seen them behave aggressively toward any other bird who was not an actual predator. But starlings, of which there must be thousands in Brooklyn, do sometimes "bug" the parrots enough to get a firm rebuke from a firm beak. In this 20 second clip, a Quaker Parrot drives off a starling who tries to crowd the parrot's position on a fire escape. This clip, like just about every clip we upload, will be making its way into the forthcoming Brooklyn Parrots documentary film.

Video Clip: Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz Discusses the Wild Parrots of Brooklyn

I was very glad to hear from Marty Markowitz' office yesterday. It turns out that Marty mentioned the wild parrots of Brooklyn in his State of the Borough speech yesterday!

We shot some footage of Marty a few months back for the forthcoming Brooklyn Parrots movie, and wanted to share a few clips of Marty talking about the "Brooklyn Boids." The office of the Borough President has been very helpful trying to track down the creeps who have been poaching our beloved birds in certain sections of Brooklyn. I can't say much about this investigation but we have several leads. This clip, like just about every clip we upload, will be making its way into the forthcoming Brooklyn Parrots documentary film.