Carteret 6/7--Monk Parakeet

Birding with Mom! Despite thrice-weekly dialysis sessions and macular degeneration, my 91 year old mother is still up for the occasional adventure, so, when she called me earlier in the week and asked if I would come up and write out her checks since her vision suddenly worsened, she also mentioned that maybe I would take her to "see" the Monk Parakeets in nearby Carteret.

I've been going to Carteret for 4 or 5 years to see the parakeets that colonized a residential section of the city but last year I missed them. I'd noticed in the previous years that a new, luxury (whatever that means in working class Carteret) condominium was being put up right next to their utility pole nest and feared that whatever "luxury" did mean, it didn't include squawking parakeets and that the nest would be destroyed. As it seems to have been.

However, Monk Parakeets are nothing if not tenacious, so this year they have regrouped and moved their operation over a couple of blocks to quieter street with small one-family houses. The nest is only about 20 minutes away from my mother's house but neither of us had ever been in that part of Carteret as we drove a circuitous route through the town. I saw the nest as we turned onto Heald Street and saw that birds were flying out of it. I was able to park directly underneath the next (granted, possibly not the best strategy if you worry about droppings, but I didn't want to make my Mom walk too much). I wasn't sure if she'd be able to see them, but I was pretty certain that even with her slight deafness she'd be able to hear them and the first squawk proved me right. She could see the bird in the nest (above) but when one came out and perched on a wire she could make out its silhouette. "They're much smaller than I imagined," she told me, not realizing that these are parakeets, not parrots. "Well, I see its outline, but I can't see any color," she sighed. In this case, I told her, it wasn't her eyes, because, since the bird was back-lit, all I could see was a silhouette too.

What I found most peculiar about this nest, which is a giant assembly of sticks and twigs surrounding the top of the light pole, was that it seemed to have more species sharing it than just parakeets. The first two birds that I saw fly out of it were robins and House Sparrows were also sitting right outside one of the nest entrances. I'd have to go back to see if this is truly a multi-species nest, which would be a new one for me, but today I didn't have the time to study the comings and goings, especially since I was in a resident's parking space. He was nice about it, understanding the attraction, but he also wanted me to move.

So my Mom got to add a life bird to her list, which, like most non-birders, is probably a lot bigger than she thinks. Driving her back home, after lunch, I was getting a little maudlin, thinking that since her eyesight is failing so quickly (according to her) that the parakeet might be the last bird she ever saw. Then I saw a mockingbird fly across the street in front of the car and called it out and she said, "Oh yes, I can tell mockingbirds just from their long tails." So, I guess there are still a few more bird sightings left for her.

My mother has always been interested in the birds Shari & I have seen and she used to be an assiduous reader of Pete Bacinski's birding column when it appeared in the Star-Ledger, but today was the first time I ever had the chance to take her out into the "field." A 3 species list with my Mom today means more to me than finding a 100 species tomorrow by myself.