Buenos Aires Flyby - Myiopsitta monachus monachus

When I arrived for a meeting at a research station outside of Buenos Aires last October, a parrot flew by between the trees - my first green-colored bird in the "wild flight." I meant to write it up when I did my earlier blog entry about birds I saw in Argentina and Uruguay, but 
didn't find it in my South American passerine bird field guide at the time - maybe it doesn't have 12 tail feathers; maybe it just missed it and need to go back and look when I get home. I had just gotten out of the car I was riding in at the Instituto Nacional de Tecnología Agropecuaria facility, and through some airspace between the trees flew the parakeet. The Monk Parakeet, also known as the Quaker Parrot, is found from the temperate to and the surrounding subtropical areas of Argentina and surrounding South American countries. I should be attending a biofuels meeting in Guatemala in April, so have been looking at reviews of different field guides for southern Mexico and northern Central America. (1) We are also thinking about taking a trip

  to Prince Edward Island later this year, so I have been looking for specialty books on birds for the Canadian Maritime Provinces as well. Princeton University Press is running a sale on its books, so there are long lists of candidates to look over - the covers look good for all of their books. I switch between the Princeton and Amazon Websites to compare prices and to look over reviews. I typically have little time to stop and look for birds when I travel for work, and when I see birds, it is usually an inopportune moment that would mean ignoring my hosts or a speaker, so cannot pull out the appropriate field guide I purchased for the trip and begin to make the identification - such it is.
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(1) It wasn't until one of our kids did a report in middle school, that I found out Mexico is a part of North America - kids learn the darn'dness things.