Bird's Nest Causes 800+ Customers To Lose Power On LI

AMITYVILLE, NY — Amityville's resident birds caused over 800 PSEG Long Island customers to lose power last Thursday, according to a PSEG representative.

PSEG told Patch a monk parakeet nest made contact with overhead electrical equipment and tripped a breaker on Merrick Road around 2 a.m. The birds are an invasive species common throughout the service area, according to the utility company.

"That resulted in an outage that affected 711 customers for two minutes, and 833 customers for just under an hour," PSEG's Jeremy Walsh told Patch.

Some residents of Snug Harbor Condominiums, a 55+ retirement community, were affected by the outage.

According to Walsh, "random animal or nest contact" with overhead lines has been the cause of five outages to the community since 2023.

"PSEG Long Island is aware of the reliability issues this area has experienced over the last few years and we have been actively working to resolve them," Walsh said.

On Friday, the utility company dispatched personnel to patrol this overhead circuit as part of a multi-day effort to clear the line of additional monk parakeet nests, he added.

Walsh said the utility company has spent the past several months planning a project to replace the underground cable serving customers on Harbor North and has been working closely with the Village of Amityville to expedite a permit so they can move forward with the "complex, intensive project."

They expect work to begin later this year.

According to a monk parakeet fact sheet PSEG shared with Patch, the birds are also known as Quaker parrots—small, brightly colored birds that are native to South America.

"While beautiful in appearance, they are invasive species reportedly capable of doubling in population every 7.5 years," the fact sheet reads.

But there's more. PSEG says the birds prefer to build their "massive nests" atop power poles, "threatening electric reliability for all PSEG Long Island customers."

Because the nests are "communal" and don't house just one bird, they can grow to 10 feet in diameter and weigh "hundreds" of pounds. When they "expand around electrical equipment," they can cause power outages and fires, as seen in Lindenhurst in June.