From balcony visitor to local celebrity: the story of Riverdale’s mystery parakeet

Hayden on the Hudson resident Carla Olinger was reading the newspaper May 23 when a neighbor came to her for help with an unexpected problem: a green parakeet had flown in through her balcony door.

In recent months, Riverdale residents have reported at least five different missing birds on social media, but none gained as much attention as the monk parakeet that flew into Olinger’s life. An avid bird lover and owner, she fondly named the bird Houdini, for its ability to skillfully escape from a cage.

A bird suspected to be Houdini was first spotted May 18, perched on the balcony of an apartment near Independence Avenue and West 237th Street. Two days later, another sighting was reported at Hudson Manor Terrace. Three days after that, Houdini made his grand entrance at Hayden on the Hudson.

Monk parakeets, also called monk parrots or Quaker parrots, are monomorphic, which means males and females look the same. Olinger doesn’t know Houdini’s gender. However, the bird’s behavior has led her to suspect Houdini was an escaped pet — a notion not everyone online has agreed with.

Houdini does not have a leg band, a state requirement for all captive-bred birds. To complicate things further, New York City is home to hundreds of wild monk parakeets.

Local legend says monk parakeets, which are native to South America, settled in the city after a shipping crate full of them broke at John F. Kennedy International Airport around the late 1960s. While no proof exists of the shipping crate mishap, the theory has become popular and widely accepted. In the Bronx, some residents pointed to a story they’d heard of a major pet shop fire that set a number of birds loose. But in the three major pet shop fires covered by news outlets — occurring in Belmont in 1971, Throggs Neck in 1991 and Morrisania in 2008 — firefighters reported dead animals, not missing ones.

While their origins in the city remain unclear, monk parakeets have made themselves at home in New York. According to the NYC Bird Alliance, their populations predominantly reside in Brooklyn and Queens, including a nest in the entranceway of the Green-Wood Cemetery, but they have been reported in all five boroughs.

Olinger described Houdini, with his bright green feathers and gray bib, as talkative and friendly. She said his chatter suggests he may be mimicking human talking patterns, another sign he was domesticated. Houdini didn’t appear thin or injured in any way, and Olinger was able to capture him in a cage without too much fuss. The bird even ate Nutri-Berries, fruit and corn right from her hand.

“He would take food out of our hand, but he wouldn’t let us touch him,” Olinger said about Houdini. “He was a little leery … It’s very hard to know what’s happened to any animal who has been found outside, what they’ve gone through.”

Tod Winston, birding guide and urban biodiversity specialist with the NYC Bird Alliance, reviewed footage of Houdini and agreed the bird’s comfortable demeanor around visitors suggested he was a pet. The lack of leg band isn’t especially abnormal, he said, as people have parrots “both legally and on the down low.” Still, there remains some possibility that Houdini is wild.

Winston explained that New Yorkers feed birds regularly, especially since the Covid-19 pandemic pushed more residents outdoors. A wild monk parakeet could be accustomed to people for that reason, too.

“That bird seems pretty calm and collected for a bird that has a nest somewhere it wants to get back to,” Winston noted. That observation made him “weigh on the side of it being an escaped pet.”

While monk parakeets aren’t known for having a robust Bronx presence, there have been local wild sightings. Jason Brougham, an exhibit preparator at the American Museum of Natural History, said that two years ago, he was walking his dog on Waldo Avenue when he heard a distinct rattle. He looked up to see five monk parakeets flying overhead.

Brougham had his own theories about Houdini. He said since the bird doesn’t have a leg band, but seemed comfortable being caged, it means one of two things: someone could be selling unbanded birds — either by capturing wild ones, or breeding and not banding them — or, some of the wild monk parakeet population is tame enough to seek out humans.

Firm in her belief that Houdini is a pet, Olinger has been set on finding the bird’s owner. She put up fliers in the Spuyten Duyvil Library and nearby apartment buildings such as the Whitehall, and a neighbor helped her make a Facebook post. A few people reached out who weren’t the owners, but wanted to take Houdini in — something that made Olinger uneasy, as a stranger could sell the bird into the pet trade.

Some residents commented thinking Houdini was other residents’ lost birds, some of which, like resident Margie Rodriguez’s Senegal parrot, still have not been discovered. The bird, named Sammy, escaped two months ago near Irwin Avenue. Sammy has a yellow belly and a green coat similar to Houdini’s.

A different parakeet with a yellow head, green belly and black stripes was discovered May 25 on Henry Hudson Parkway East near the West 239th Street bus stop. The resident who found the bird, Denis Blot, said he searched for its owner for a week before eventually giving it away to a caring colleague of his. Blot named the parakeet Chubbs.

Olinger said she plans to foster Houdini for a couple more weeks in hopes the owner reaches out. If no owner is found, she said she will give Houdini to a fellow bird owner or take him to Bird Jungle, a pet store in Scarsdale.