Battling some pesky parakeets

The birds prefer to nest on the switches rather than anything else.
DALLAS (AP) -- Frustrated by parakeets that tirelessly build huge nests on electrical equipment, power companies have tried about everything to stop the cute green birds. They've used chemical repellents, lasers and fake predators, and even killed some, to the outrage of bird lovers.
Now a Texas utility is trying a different approach, building a 40-foot platform near electrical towers to lure monk parakeets away from sensitive equipment. TXU Electric Delivery hopes other companies can eventually adopt the idea, but so far the parakeets refuse to leave their original digs.
"They have trees all around them, and now the platform, and yet they prefer the [electrical] switches," spokeswoman Carol Peters said recently as about 40 lime-green birds chatted loudly and ignored the new nesting area.
Workers even placed twigs on the platform, but the birds carried the nesting materials back to their old homes.
Outages, fires
In Connecticut, the nests have caused as many as 12 power outages and four fires since 1998, said Al Carbone, a spokesman for the power company United Illuminating. Last year, the utility handed about 190 captured birds over to the U.S. Department of Agriculture to be euthanized.
Experts think the tenacious monk parakeet, a small parrot from South America, entered the U.S. when some birds escaped from shipping crates, probably in the 1960s.
Many states consider them an invasive species and prohibit people from feeding or caring for the creatures. Colonies have also been found in Illinois, New York, New Jersey, Florida, Virginia, Washington and Louisiana, as well as in Canada.
No one knows for certain why they like to nest at electrical substations and in utility poles. The nests can grow as big as a small car and include multiple compartments for large flocks, said Mattie Sue Athan, a parrot behavior consultant who has written several books on the birds.
But the birds have achieved a loyal following of fans who admire their cleverness and the splash of tropical color they bring to urban areas. Bird watchers in Edgewater, N.J., market T-shirts, calendars and other parakeet merchandise, and a New York man leads tours of their Brooklyn nesting grounds.
"It is hard to argue with cute, and they are cute and smart and appealing birds," Peters said. "But they are nesting in equipment that provides an essential service."
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