Wild Parrots Make a Home in Brooklyn

I'm going to help Steve Baldwin get the word out that there's wild parrots living in Brooklyn. These birds are not new inhabitants of Brooklyn College's soccer field, but many people don't know that they're there. These Quaker parrots come from a more temperate climate and thus, can survive the cold Northeastern winters. They build huge nests and share them with other birds, has anyone ever heard of that before?

"They're so astonishing. You see them and they're loud and they're green and you assume that they're tropical," said Eleanor Miele, associate professor of science education at the college, who has her students observe the birds for class projects. But "they are adaptable for winter."

And, says parrot fan Steve Baldwin, who has dedicated the past couple of years to chronicling the birds, there is no shortage of food because they will eat pretty much anything, like grass, the buds on trees, seeds, fruit.

Some states have banned the ownership of these birds out of fear that their large nests will cause problems or that they will damage agriculture, but Baldwin says they're not really that much of a threat. Perhaps I'll head over to Brooklyn one weekend soon and take some pictures.