Quaker Parakeet

Overview

Also called the monk parakeet, this is the only parrot in the world that builds its own stick nest rather than using a tree hollow. Wild colonies construct enormous communal structures with separate chambers for each pair, and those nests are why the species is regulated in a way no other pet parrot is: escaped birds have established self-sustaining colonies across the United States and Europe, and their nests on electrical substations and transmission towers cause outages and fires. Several US states ban or restrict the species for that reason alone. As a pet the Quaker is famously bold for its size and among the most reliable talkers of any small parrot.

Quick Facts

History

Nearly 65,000 monk parakeets entered the United States through the pet trade between 1968 and 1972, and the feral population dates from that window. A popular account has a shipping crate splitting open at John F. Kennedy airport and seeding the whole invasion, but retellings put the accident in different years and the number of escapees anywhere from a dozen to 2,000, and no first-hand record of it has ever surfaced. The US Fish and Wildlife Service began pulling down birds and nests in the 1970s and failed. Numbers then held steadier than biologists had feared, for reasons still unsettled, with roughly 100,000 birds in Florida today.