'Partridge in a pear tree' season finds parakeet at a bird feeder

In 48 years of living in Elk Grove Village, Dick and Pat McCloughan have never seen anything like this in their back yard.

"We were sitting at the kitchen table and my wife says, 'Looky there,'" McCloughan says.

Sure enough, the bird feeder they stock every winter had a new visitor, much more exotic than the usual crowd.

"We 've had a pair of cardinals, blue jays and even a woodpecker," McCloughan says. The woodpecker stuck around to remodel an ornamental birdhouse.

"The hole was too small for birds," McCloughan says. "A year ago, the woodpecker came and enlarged the hole. He didn't nest, but sparrows moved in."

This newest visitor to their backyard bird feeder is green, and looks like a small parrot.

Thinking it might be someone's lost pet, McCloughan crept to within about 6 feet of the bird and snapped a couple of photographs.

"What attracted him, I have no idea," McCloughan says. "He'd just sit on the edge."

The couple first saw the bird last Wednesday morning.

"He was back again Friday and Saturday. He was there when we went to church (Sunday morning)," McCloughan says.

Since then, well, McCloughan is worried the bird might not survive the cold and snow.

It ain't easy being green in the snow, but the little fella probably is going to be fine.

"It's a monk parakeet, also called a Quaker parakeet," explains Tim Snyder, curator of birds and reptiles at Brookfield Zoo. "It's probably one that is several generations wild-born. Right now there's a relatively healthy population in the Chicago area of these birds. "

Originally imported here as pets, the bird, a smaller relative of the parrot and native to Argentina and Bolivia, occasionally flies as far north as southern Brazil, Snyder says. But don't cry for this sturdy bird from Argentina. Enough of the pets escaped into the wild here by the early 1970s to build a new life in the Chicago area. They survive the cold, and face no more predators than any other bird.

As a child growing up in West Chicago, Snyder remembers trekking to Hyde Park on Chicago's South Side to see the nest of a flock of monk parakeets - which were championed by former Chicago Mayor Harold Washington.

"They build very large nests with lots of chambers, rooms. It's kind of a community nest," Snyder says. "These guys will build something like a condominium and each pair will have their own chamber in the nest. You can't miss 'em. They build them on trees or on top of power poles. It looks like a huge haystack."

In fact, says Dave Willard, collection manager of the bird division at the Field Museum, "they've caused problems making those nests around electrical lines."

Willard says the birds have been longtime residents at the 53rd Street exit off Lake Shore Drive in Hyde Park, where you can hear the monk parakeet's distinctive cry on most days.

"It's a very parrotty, squawky thing that makes you feel that you are not in the United States," Willard says.

Like many city residents, the birds have made their way to the suburbs. There are nesting populations of monk parakeets in Bensenville, Carol Stream, Zion and elsewhere - including near Snyder's home in Riverside.

"I've seen them flying past my house - a flock of six or seven," Snyder says.

Snyder and Willard say it's a bit unusual to see only one, as they usually travel in small groups. Considered a pest to agricultural crops in South America, the monk parakeets in our area generally live off bird feeders and the fruits and berries of ornamental plants - many of them not native to the area either. The U.S. Department of Agriculture isn't a fan of the invading species, Snyder says, but so far the population isn't large enough to cause a problem to crops.

"As the population grows, they stick to the suburbs and the cities," Willard says.

"Their population is expanding," Snyder says. "At some point, you could put out food and just be mobbed by monk parakeets. But I don't see that happening any time soon."

Until then, it's kind of neat to see one show up at your bird feeder. And if the monk parakeet lands beside one of the cardinals in the McCloughans' back yard, the green and red in the snow will give it a real Christmas feel.