The borough birds are out to get

OVER THE TIME we have been living here, on the 16th floor, there has been a number of unusual bird incidents. I never expected I would get to see, in such close proximity, the red-tailed hawk (which, up close, appears the size of a German Shepherd), nor the sparrow hawk, nor the chicken hawk.

During summer nights, there are the small nighthawks whizzing about in search of insects as the sun sets.

A hummingbird crashed and died up here. My fault.When we first moved here, I had unthinkingly placed a brilliant red, glittering oilcloth on a table on the terrace by the wall.The color lured the hummingbird. Not expecting to find a wall directly behind it, he did not stop.

A few years ago on the terrace just outside the kitchen there was an incessantly squawking bird. I couldn’t see where the bird was, but it didn’t stop complaining. Finally, I said to my husband: “Please go out and shut that bird up!” I meant it to be a joke—who can stop a bird from squawking?—but he obediently went out a moment later and returned with a very pretty parrot, brightly colored in purple and yellow and green with a touch of red. It was now silent and happily perched on his shoulder.

My husband had grown up with parrots, and this little guy seemed to really like him. A couple of minutes later, a young couple raced around on the terrace, which was supposed to be private, but they had come in from the street and begged the doorman to let them in. I don’t know how they got outside, but I went out to intercept.

“Our bird! Our bird!! Have you seen our bird?” Apparently, they had left the window open and the bird flew away. It was very young, which explained in part why it was crying.They put the bird in a small cage and departed.

Some weeks later, my husband was out of town and I heard a similar screaming on the terrace. I looked out and saw a yellowand-white cockatiel in almost the exact same spot as the parrot.Was this place the destination for escaped non-indigenous avian?

A cockatiel was, to me, not as exciting as a parrot, nevertheless I had a friend who had a cockatiel that not only whistled songs it had heard on the radio or from a CD, it was then able to start the song and improvise on its own, riffing off the initial notes.Thus “Dixieland” took on a whole new dimension. I went over to the bird and reached out to it. It hopped away. I tried again.This time it bit me on the hand, hard enough to draw blood. Then it left.

I knew it was ridiculous but my feelings were hurt more than my finger.

Tell us your bird encounters. Email theunnaturalist@nypress.com