Parakeet Nest in Leonia Blamed for Area Power Outages

A monk parakeet nest on a utility pole outside Overpeck Park caused a transformer to short out and power lines to come down, knocking out electricity to more than 3,000 customers in areas from Teaneck to Englewood Cliffs, northjersey.com reported.

The outage was reported shortly before 1 a.m. Saturday and impacted up to 2,000 customers in Teaneck, according to PSE&G. Service was fully restored more than four hours later.

The large nests can cause heat to build up in transformers, eventually leading to a short circuit, according to the report.

Monk parakeets have been nesting in Edgewater and the Overpeck Park area for at least 30 years. Last week, parakeet supporters managed to stop Edgewater officials from cutting down trees where the birds nest. 

-- Staff Report