Excerpts from Jim Conrad's
Naturalist Newsletter

from the September 8, 2008 Newsletter written in Sabacché and issued from a ciber in nearby Mérida, Yucatán MÉXICO
TERMITE NEST & AZTEC PARAKEETS
Very often when I pass the nest shown here, two Aztec [Olive-throated] Parakeets are hanging around the nest. Their presence there got me to wondering.

Parakeets are very watchful and nervous here, probably because every boy carries a slingshot, and I've known men to shoot parakeets, hoping to only wound them so they can be nursed back to health and sold. Therefore, I can't get close enough to see exactly what the parakeets are doing. However, I do clearly see them picking at the covered tunnels, and clambering over the nest itself, their heads down and their tails high as if they were chewing at the nest. They do this for extended periods of time. When they fly off the nest onto a limb they wipe their beaks as if they'd been feeding.

When I approach and the birds fly off I can see that certain tunnel sections have been ripped away, and that the nest itself has been opened in many places exposing chambers within. I can't say, however, whether the parakeets have done this. I'm not even certain whether the nest is an abandoned one or is still active.

I am sure, however that during this last week I passed the nest every morning as I went out mapping trails, and every morning the parakeets were there. I spoke with some of the older Maya in the village and they confirmed my suspicion: Those parakeets live in the termite nests, they say.

There's no reason why this shouldn't be true. Howell reports Aztec [Olive-throated] Parakeets as nesting in termitaries, and termitary is the fancy name for termite nest.