I can see why you're so fond of him - how neat!

Thanks for posting this!

Would he survive your winter?

Omar

What fun to watch him, Cynthia................he is adorable. Omar brings up a good point...........maybe we should research this.

No, he won't survive the winter in North Texas. Parakeets are originally from Australia where it is warm year-round and he will die in the cold. I would worry he'd starve to death without seeds or berries to eat in the winter. I don't know if you could catch him, but getting him indoors in October would be a good idea.

I think he might survive the winter. There used to be a HUGE parakeet nest in Addison, but I think the tree was recently trimmed.

When I was a kid we had 2 freeze to death when a freaky front came in during the night in the Rio Grande Valley

Thank you for the good advice. Cheeky does not want to be caught. After 5 weeks, he'll sing above my head and occasionally allow me to point him out to others. He'll let me stand about 4 feet below him. Once I accidentally walked past him and got within 2 feet, but he took off. These pics are taken with a telephoto lens

I am very sad to learn of their sensitivity to cold. I saw a map of their habitat and it seemed to cover all of Australia and I assumed that meant a variety of temperatures.

I asked my husband if we could keep him and he said sure..."but you'll have to catch him!"

Try the box, string and a stick trap. My son said his dad does that with white wings in their yard.
BTW probably a male as the cere above his beak is blue. My cousin raised them for a 4H project.

I remember when my oldest son was about ten he caught a cockatiel with a dip net.
He came running in, "Mama, Mama, come look at the prettiest bird I have ever seen". I went out with him and told him it was a cockatiel. He taught it to woof whistle. Once a friend and I were sitting on my front porch. A boy about 15 rode by on his bike just as the bird whistled. The kid looked and us a grinned. We just died laughing.

Ya never know...Cheeky could find a warm spot to overwinter where he wouldn't be disturbed.

thanks phoenix....I hope so. I've thought about this and we do have fairly wide eaves over the east side of our house. I could put some sort of platform for him to build a nest up there. All I know is since I've started contemplating his capture I have not seen him anywhere near me. I've heard him but not seen him yesterday and today. We got a hard rain this evening, I guess he figured that out, won't know until tomorrow....c

I wonder if it flew out of its owner's house and got lost?

Lou, yes. That is probably what happened.

We once had a dear little pet parakeet that loved to sit on my shoulder as I worked around the house. He had the run of the house most of the time and would have eaten out of our plates if we would have let him.

The parrot family contains the most intelligent of birds (crows are also very intelligent) and they are very social so if you just one they will become closely aligned with you as they crave companionship.

Unfortunatly, they don't have a 'homing' instinct like pigeons so if they get loose they fly away. One time, with the bird on my shoulder, I forgot and walked outside with him. He flew away. It was a cold rainy day in winter.

I'm sorry, but I don't think a parakeet can survive a Dallas area winter on it's own.

Here is a link that might be useful: One of many videos of Alex the parrot showing his thinking skills ...

Roselee
I am sorry you lost your bird. I can tell from you words you still miss him. Cheeky is still happily chirping away in the trees. Since the day when I inadvertently got within about two feet of his feet, he had made it a point to be at least 4 feet above my head. I can't help but grow fonder of him each week. c

The following is on the Audubon Society site:

Submitted by anne (not verified) on Tue, 2013/12/17 - 11:28am.

"My winter job is keeping my bird feeders full - 40 pounds a week - as here in Cleveland Heights, Ohio I have a bright green parakeet - budgie - at my feeders for the last 2 months. He/she comes 3-4 times a day even in the cold and snow. I don't know if it escaped or was released, but seems to be happy with all the sparrows, cardinals and bluejays. How it stays warm I can't know but so far so good. Anne"

Although it's not the norm it seems it's possible for a parakeet to survive a cold climate winter. It must have found a warm place, like a hot air vent, to hole up between feedings.

Here is a link that might be useful: Article on how birds cope with cold in winter ...

Cheeky may be a Quaker parrot which do live in Texas. They are invasive of coarse but there are a lot of them in Austin which gets cold winters sometimes.

Here is a link that might be useful: Wild parrots in Austin

Thank you for the postings. Cheeky stayed in my garden for 10 1/2 weeks. I never found a feather. I hope he went back to his home. c

Hopefully, he will return in the Spring, Cynthia !!!