Monk parakeet

Name and taxonomy

The Comte de Buffon described the bird in 1780 in his work on the birds. Buffon attached no scientific name, so the Dutch naturalist Pieter Boddaert supplied one in 1783. He called it Psittacus monachus, and monachus is Late Latin for a monk. Charles Lucien Bonaparte set up the genus Myiopsitta in 1854. The genus name joins Greek and Latin roots for mouse and parrot, after the grey face.

Three subspecies are recognised, and their ranges meet in Paraguay. The nominate form of Argentina and Uruguay is the largest of the three. The cliff parakeet of Bolivia was once counted as a fourth form. Committees raised it to a full species between 2015 and 2024, and one list still disagrees. Buffon named no place of origin for his bird. James Peters fixed the type locality at Montevideo in Uruguay in 1937. The forms calita and cotorra are poorly separated, and the boundary needs more study.

Evolution and relatives

The monk parakeet belongs to Arinae, the New World parrots. Its only close relative is the cliff parakeet, which nests on rock faces. The two birds live at different heights, so their ranges barely touch. Nest building separates the genus from almost every other parrot in the world. Only some of the African lovebirds build anything of the kind. The habit probably arose in open country, where tree holes are scarce.

The species sits in Psittacidae, the family of the true parrots. Its order, Psittaciformes, sits close to the falcons and the perching birds. Nest building is probably a late invention inside that order. No fossil appears to record when the first stick nest was built.

Appearance

The upperparts are bright green. The forehead is blue grey, and the cheeks and throat are a paler grey. Feathers on the throat and belly carry light edges, which produce a barred look. The lower belly, the legs and the underside of the tail are yellowish green. The flight feathers are dark blue, and the tail narrows towards its tip. The bill is orange to pinkish brown, the legs are grey and the eyes are brown.

Females run 10 to 20 per cent smaller than males. The sexes still look alike, and only a DNA or feather test names them with confidence. AnAge gives an average adult mass of 81.7 g for the species. Breeders have produced blue, yellow, white, cinnamon and pied birds for the pet trade. Feral flocks stay green, because a pale bird has less cover from predators. A perched bird appears stocky, with a short neck and a heavy head.

Habitat and range

The native range covers Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, Bolivia and southern Brazil. The birds use open savanna, scrub woodland and palm groves, mostly where rain is light. They gather near large bodies of water. City parks, farms, orchards and gardens hold them as well. The calita subspecies climbs the Andean foothills to 1,000 metres. Birds far from towns move in winter to find better feeding grounds.

Feral flocks now live in Europe, North America, North Africa, the Middle East and Asia. Spain holds more than 80 per cent of the European total. Madrid counted 10,800 birds in 2015, and Barcelona about 5,000 in the same year. Seville rose from 1,200 birds in 2013 to 6,300 by 2021. Estimates for Florida alone run from 150,000 to 500,000. GBIF holds records of the species from 63 countries. Athens has a breeding colony in the National Garden at the centre of the city. Brussels has held wild birds since the 1970s.

Diet and feeding

The monk parakeet eats seeds, fruit, blossom, leaf buds, thistles and grasses. It takes insects too, so the diet is not purely vegetable. Sunflower, safflower and pumpkin seeds all appear on the list. Near farms the birds eat maize, sorghum, citrus fruit, legumes and sweet potato. They even take meat that has been hung out to dry. Flocks feed together, and a group strips a crop quickly. Citrus groves and fruit trees draw flocks in the native range.

Farmers in Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay treat the bird as a major pest. Charles Darwin was among those who noted the damage. Argentine officials have claimed losses of up to two thirds of a planted grain crop. Reports from Chicago find no serious crop damage there. The spread of eucalyptus plantations probably helped the South American population grow. Those plantations give safe nest sites with few rival species.

Behaviour and social life

Monk parakeets live in flocks all year round. The nest is the centre of the life of the flock. Pairs weave sticks, twigs and small branches into a bulky structure. A colony nest can grow to the size of a small car. Each pair keeps its own entrance and its own set of chambers inside. One chamber holds the eggs, another the older chicks, and a third serves as a lookout.

Other animals move into the spare rooms. Pigeons, sparrows, American kestrels and yellow-billed teal have all been found as tenants. Red squirrels use the nests too. The birds sleep in the nest at night through the year, not only when they breed. That habit lets the species hold out in cold winters far from its home range. Some flocks build on electrical gear, where the warmth helps and the fire risk is real. A pair rarely travels far when food sits near the nest.

Communication and senses

The usual call is a loud, throaty screech. Written forms include chape-yee and quak quaki quak-wi quarr. A flock stays noisy for most of the day. Each bird appears to carry its own voice print, which lets the others recognise it. The print seems to work whatever call type the bird uses. An alarm call probably lifts the whole colony into the air at once.

Feral groups develop local dialects. A colony founded by a few birds may keep the odd dialect of those founders. Three separate dialects occur among the parakeets around Milford, Connecticut. Pet birds learn scores of human words and phrases. Like other parrots, the species copies sounds it hears often.

Reproduction and life cycle

Breeding in the native range runs from late August into November. A pair is the usual unit, and both birds share the work. A Barcelona study found three to five birds in about 20 per cent of breeding units. Those groups mix related and unrelated birds, and more than one female may lay in a nest. The clutch usually holds four to seven white eggs, and counts up to eleven are recorded.

The female sits without a break, and the male brings her food. Incubation lasts about 20 days. Both parents then feed the chicks in the nest. Grown young sometimes stay to help feed the next brood, which is rare in parrots. The nest itself is used again, and the colony adds rooms as it grows. Young birds may breed in the season after they leave the nest.

A wild monk parakeet lives about 6 years on average. Captive birds reach 10 to 30 years, and AnAge records one that made 22.1 years. Wikipedia gives an overall average near 15 years across wild and captive birds.

Predators and threats

Like other small parrots, it is probably taken by hawks, falcons and owls. The thick stick nest may shield the eggs and chicks from most attackers. The main pressure on the species comes from people. In the United States, people pull the nests down as a routine measure. Crews return each year, because a colony may rebuild on the same pole. British authorities announced trapping, nest removal and shooting in 2011.

Spain outlawed keeping and trading the bird in 2013. Auckland banned its sale, breeding and distribution from September 2022. More than a dozen American states forbid sale and ownership outright. Cold weather also limits the species, and several European colonies have died out. Denmark, Germany, Austria and Czechia lost theirs, and so did some French and Dutch groups. A Bahamian colony on Eleuthera lasted from 1985 until the middle 1990s. Hurricanes may have ended it.

Population and conservation

The IUCN places the monk parakeet in the Least Concern category. The bird is very common across its native range. One published estimate puts the world total near 20 million. Numbers in South America have risen along with eucalyptus plantations. iNaturalist holds 60,914 observations of the species.

Most official effort goes into control rather than protection. Chicago residents resisted removal of their colony, and the mayor of the city joined them. That flock numbers about 1,000 birds, and the first city nest was found in 1973. Argentina files no national threat category, while Uruguay lists the bird as Least Concern. Unlike many parrots, this one appears to be gaining ground rather than losing it. Puerto Rico now holds more of these parakeets than of any other parrot.

Relationship with humans

Thousands of monk parakeets reached the United States as pets between the 1960s and the 1980s. Many escaped or were released, and wild flocks followed. By the early 1970s the species bred in seven states, and eight more had it by 1995. Mexico City recorded its first birds in the middle 1990s. By 2015 the parakeet lived in 97 Mexican cities and in every region of the country. Some sellers there dye the head and breast yellow to pass a bird off as a rarer parrot. A Mexican ban on trade in native parrots pushed the market towards this one.

The birds nest on utility poles, which causes fires and power cuts. Manhattan has no flock, because its wiring runs underground. Brooklyn, Queens and western Long Island suit them much better. As a pet the monk parakeet is bold, loud and clever. Owners report vocabularies of dozens of words and phrases. Rules differ by state, and some require banding, a permit or clipped flight feathers. Canada gained its first wild birds after a pet shop released six near Montreal.

In culture and myth

The species appears to carry no ancient folklore, and its stories are modern and urban. Both of its names point at religious dress. The Latin monachus means monk, and it refers to the grey hood of the plumage. The pet trade name Quaker probably follows the same plain grey idea. New Yorkers tell a story that their flock began with a broken crate at an airport. The tale is told of the 1960s, and it appears impossible to check.

Birds hold the gate spires at Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn. Local people treat those birds as an emblem, and a website has chronicled them for years. In Chicago the parakeets became a political question. Hyde Park residents defended the colony, and the mayor of the city took their side. In Spain and in Argentina the same bird appears in the press as a pest. The meaning of the parakeet seems to follow the place rather than the bird. Bird watchers seem to welcome the flocks, and power companies do not.