6. The Monk Parrots of Green-Wood Cemetery
As you walk under the gothic arches at the entrance to Brooklyn’s Green-Wood Cemetery, you may hear the trills and whistles of parrots. A group of monk parrots lives in giant nests made of twigs and branches atop the entrance’s spires. Named for the grey hood on their heads that make them look like monks, this species is native to Bolivia, Brazil, Paraguay, and Uruguay.
The bright green monk parrots of Green-Wood are perhaps the most well-known, but they’ve also been spotted at Brooklyn College, in neighborhoods like Red Hook, Bay Ridge, Manhattan Beach, and Canarsie, and in some parts of Queens and the Bronx. According to Stephen Baldwin, an enthusiast who runs the site BrooklynParrots.com, tens of thousands of Monk Parrots were sent to the United States from Argentina in the 1960s, but it’s unclear exactly how they ended up in the wild.