Moni, Eddie and I arrived at my parents yesterday, where the big excitement was the recent arrival of a flock of ten parrots, who seem to have domeciled themselves in the back garden. The willow tree (apparently one of the finest in southern England, and subject to a tree preservation order), which has served as a perch to wood pigeons and other local species, is now regularly visited by several parrots at a time. As I write, Eddie tells me there's five in the tree.
Can anyone say what type of parrot this is? Where are they from? How did they get to West London? Are they likely to breed in this climate? Where will they nest?UPDATE: Thanks, KG for identification of these birds as ring-necked parakeets, and the Wikipedia quote. My good friend Andrzej Poloczek of Hither Green, London SE13, followed up with links describing the current state of feral parrots in south east England here, and here. The second link is to a BBC website which has many comments from people seeing such sights.
This time last year:
Christmas lights in Jeziorki
Okęcie and Heathrow compared
In my opinion, it is Rose-ringed Parakeet.
ReplyDeleteWikipedia said:
"The European populations became established during the mid to late 20th Century from introduced and escaped birds. There are two main population centres in Britain: the largest is based around south London, Surrey and Berkshire, and by 2005 consisted of many thousands of birds."