The Parakeets of McAllen: Tropical Birds on a Border City
Near Mcallen, Texas
Just before dusk on most evenings in McAllen, something happens that stops people on the sidewalk. A sound builds from the direction of the parking lots and the utility lines, a chattering, cascading noise that grows louder as it approaches. Then the birds appear: hundreds of them, sometimes thousands, green parakeets banking in formation over the rooftops, circling once or twice, and dropping into their roost in a wave of wings and noise. The sound cuts off almost instantly once they land. Then it starts again as the last groups arrive.
Green parakeets, Psittacara holochlorus, are native to northeastern Mexico. Their status in the lower Rio Grande Valley is described by ornithologists as established, meaning they have formed self-sustaining wild populations. The exact origin of this population is not settled in the scientific literature; they could be descendants of escaped cage birds, or they could have expanded naturally north from Mexico, or both. The Valley's climate and food supply, including the fruit trees planted by those early citrus farmers, suits them well.
What is clear is that they have been here long enough, and in sufficient numbers, to become part of the daily experience of McAllen. They roost communally in urban areas, choosing palm trees and large ornamentals near parking lots and shopping centers, structures that offer warmth and some protection from the elements. Their presence has made McAllen, along with Brownsville and the rest of the lower Valley, one of the most reliable places in the United States to see wild parrots and parakeets without traveling to a tropical country.
The World Birding Center at Bentsen-Rio Grande and the network of Valley parks record more than five hundred bird species. The parakeets are not the rarest of those birds. But they are the ones that follow you home.
