For the second year in a row, during August and September, we have been visited by a Green Parakeet in the neighbourhood. With the sunrise each morning, there is a piercing call, but only last year did I actually catch a glimpse of the bird in the tree. Then in the evening, the same call is repeated just at dusk. It sounds lonely. From what I have gathered, it seems that Parakeets are an introduced bird which has formed, at times, large colonies in major cities like Stuttgart and Berlin. Flocks of these small parrots occupy large trees, and if one can wake me up on a Saturday morning at 5:30, I would hate to hear what a nesting colony sounds like the dozing neighbourhoods.
The bird, remains hidden amongst the green leaves of a tree I was convinced had been over trimmed, indeed, it looked hacked and left like some mangled piece of broccoli forgotten on the side of a child’s dinner plate, but from a 3 metre stump comes the limbs and branches of a tree which now towers over most of the street. Broad shield shaped leaves larger than two hand-widths across capture the suns rays and cast speckled sunshine onto the gardens below. Looking for a green bird in a green tree seems next to impossible until some movement or perhaps a silhouette is seen. This is one of the reasons why I have yet to see the bird this year, and only have heard its call at the bookends of the day.
So well camouflaged that the bird remains hidden to the various Sparrow Hawks and other birds of prey that seem to raise a ruckus in the birding world. Even our little Zebra finch which sits in a cage by the window drops down to the floor of the cage and turns his head upward to wait for a passing hawk. The Green Parakeet seems ever confident of never being seen, and of finding a mate, even this late in the season. Perhaps one day there will be the beginnings of a fruitful colony of birds, but at this stage, two seasons in a row, this early settler better find a friend, or we might not hear any Green Parakeet song for a while.
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