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FOWL PLAY IN QNS. BLACKOUT

Con Ed yesterday went to the birds — or, more precisely, to the parrots.

More than 1,500 Con Ed customers in Beechhurst, Queens, lost power for about 45 minutes because of Quaker parrots nesting in electrical equipment.

“They have huge nests,” said Shannon Devin, 23, who lives on 151st Street and 11th Avenue. “It’s always like a big bang when it happens.”

The neighborhood has become a favorite area of the birds — also known as monk parakeets — whose nests there have repeatedly damaged a piece of Con Ed equipment that costs $20,000 to replace each time.

“These things are prolific — very prolific — and the reason they build these condos of nests around our lines is the warmth,” said Con Ed spokesman Chris Olert.

“They have caused fires in the past from the nests being around the equipment. We need to remove these nests for reliability.”

Yesterday, heavy rains soaked the birds’ nests around Con Ed transformers and other equipment, causing it to overheat and leaving part of the neighborhood in the dark.

“My daughter called me because my alarm went off,” said Marie Nubile, who lives on 12th Avenue and 160th Street.

“It’s a bit scary. You don’t know what it could be, but it turns out it was the parakeets.”

The parrots are native to South America, but “legend has it that they broke loose from some crate that was at Kennedy” Airport 20 years ago, and spread throughout New York City, Olert said.

“We’ve found nests in The Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens and occasionally one in Staten Island,” said Olert, estimating the number of parrot nests in Con Ed’s system at around 200.

“The concentration seems to be in Brooklyn, Queens,” he said.

dan.mangan@nypost.com