What Are They???

We live close to the coast in southeast Texas. On February 22 of this year, we were in Seabrook and stopped in a shopping center. Husband was driving and I saw black birds AND parrots foraging in the parking lot together. This is a month before I got Buddy. I'm all excited, never seen parrots like this, I'm telling husband to get closer, getting my phone ready to take pics. This is as close as I dared. I posted this pic of FB and was told by a friend that they are Mexican parrots and they have been migrating north. I know that if you go to Brownsville at the US/Mexico border you can see the palm trees filled with parrots at certain times of the year. I've been there but never at the right time.

I've been talking with friends in the area and one showed me some areas where they roost and have nests. It's been a very interesting find and I love watching them. Here is the pic I took, any ideas on what kind of parrot these are? The pic is not the greatest but I didn't want to scare them off. The black birds in the pic, Buddy has all their sounds down, lol.


***NEW UPDATE***
Over the last two weeks I have been watching for two monk parrots flying around my house and across the street. I've been thinking about putting bird feeders out but the problem I see is every other bird coming, especially the cracklings who like to get into trouble. They were beautiful to watch, they fly together and fuss together. I love watching them and I hope I see them more. As for the feeders, I have a lot of reservations about it because I would hate to see them harmed if the feeder attracted them and they were injured because of it.

Looks like Quakers to me.

Looks like Quakers to me too.

Yup. Quakers. Exciting

Definitely Quakers (AKA Monk Parakeets). My friend had a blue female named Hercules that is the biggest wimp of a bird I've ever met, haha!

I love Quakers! And yes, that is most certainly a group of Quaker Parrots/Monk Parakeets.

There is a colony of Quakers in Austin..

They tend to do well in the more arid warm climates and when owners accidently let them go... well they breed WELL and adapted well to the wild.
Have babies.. and bing.

You've got a bigger colony.

There's several spots in Houston that you can see colonies/nests of quakers. In The Valley you can see amazons. I've got a video of them playing in a fountain in Mission.

thekarens said:

There's several spots in Houston that you can see colonies/nests of quakers. In The Valley you can see amazons. I've got a video of them playing in a fountain in Mission.

Click to expand...

Do you know where around Houston flocks have been seen? I would love to see them. I've gone into the neighborhoods in Seabrook looking in the trees as well as Kemah, Baycliff and San Leon. In March we took the kids crabbing under the Kemah bridge and thought I saw a parrot but it flashed by so fast and I saw nothing more other than black birds.

The kids had never been crabbing so that was a great experience for them. They caught one crab and their Dad went to pick up the little crab. All I heard was him screaming, then his daughter crying. The crab got the Dads finger, got it good he was bleeding, he threw the crab in the water and his daughter was mad because he let her crab go. Everyone was cracking up except those two. Good trip, but now that we know there are parrots, the kids and I are always looking up to see what flies by.

When I want to find birds for bird watching this is what I use: http://ebird.org/ebird/map/ Type in Houston and Monk Parakeet and then zoom in on the map and they will show the locations where Monk parakeets have been seen. You can also set the parameters as to which year and time of year.