The Monks of Saint Thomas

BY FATHER GREGORY HOUCK, O.CARM.

At the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem, there is a whole group of Coptic monks who, finding no room inside the church, live on top of the roof. Surprisingly, the same situation exists at the Church of Saint Thomas the Apostle in the Hyde Park area of Chicago. Instead of Coptic Monks, though, these monks are parrots. They are the Monk Parrots of Hyde Park.

Monk parrots are plain green, about the size of a robin and have a squawky call. They are naturally found in the tropical regions of South America. And because they are smart and good at mimicking human words, they have been popular as pets. Since the early 1900s many have been imported into the United States. Over the years, a few have escaped their owners or were deliberately set free and because they are smart, they have learned how to thrive in North America. There are colonies in most American cities like Boston and New York. In Chicago, they seem to be centered in the Hyde Park area, with a large group at Saint Thomas.

Most species of parrots build separate nests, but monk parrots build large apartment house nests with many pairs, each in a separate ‘apartment,’ living together in a tenement (or monastery) made entirely of sticks. There is such a monastery built on top of the elementary school at Saint Thomas the Apostle parish. It is hard to tell how many parrots live there, but when they fly around in the neighborhood the flock seems to be made of about 20 to 30 birds.

Because they are smart, they have learned how to survive a northern winter. They try to build their nest-complex around electrical transformers high on telephone poles. Because transformers produce heat, the apartment or monastery stays warm enough for these tropical birds to survive the winter—even a Chicago winter. At Saint Thomas, they had such a nest on a complex of three transformers on a pole right next to the church. The birds, although smart, sometimes connected between the poles of the transformers, throwing the circuit breaker. The local power company, ComEd, would reset the transformer but, sooner or later, a parrot would again trip the breaker. After the neighbors complained that the resulting power outages were too frequent, ComEd finally came this summer and destroyed the nest. Did this stop the parrots? Of course not! They simply rebuilt just a few feet away to the roof of the school building, using a Dish-TV antenna for a foundation. There they seem to be happy and can be found in the evening chattering among themselves all around the nest.