birds of a feather
T’other day I was round at a pal’s for an end-of-summer BBQ and the fun and festivities were continually interrupted by a great cacophony of squawking and shrieking from the surrounding trees, the noise of the resident ring-necked parakeets. How exactly did a parrot from the Himalayas become a common sight, and sound, in southeast England?
An exotic-looking bird, with a bright green body, red beak and a pink and black ring around its neck, Britain’s only naturalised parrot, Psittacula krameri, has firmly established itself in the southeast and is now looking to spread its wings. Originally native to the Indian subcontinent and sub-Saharan Africa, there are also now sizable populations in the Midlands and North and have been spotted as far afield as Plymouth and Aberdeen! Numbers have swelled from around five hundred in the mid-80s to an estimated 35,000 today, but the question remains, how did they first arrive?
As it transpires that’s a topic that has given rise to plenty of urban myths and conspiracy theories. Did Jimi Hendrix really release the original two parakeets in London’s Carnaby Street in 1968? How about them escaping Shepperton Studios during the filming of 1951’s ‘The African Queen’ starring Humphrey Bogart and Katharine Hepburn? Or perhaps they took flight from Syon Park’s aviary when a plane crashed into it? There’s even talk that the first breeding pair having escaped from George Michael’s Hampstead townhouse during a burglary break-in! Either way, the first large colony wasn’t deterred by rising London house prices and eventually made the riverside idyll of Kingston upon Thames their home.
Although tropical birds by descent, those here are more than able to cope with our seasonal weather and can easily travel up to fifteen miles to forage and search out the tastiest bird feeders. Furthermore, with few, if any, natural predators they live for thirty years or more, start breeding six months in, and with their mating season starting earlier than that of most other birds, in January, get the jump on everyone else. Voracious feeders, known to aggressively defend their territory they are observed continually chasing most other birds away from feeders and fighting feather-and-beak with starlings and jackdaws.
There are currently no plans for a cull of parakeets in Britain, though some conservationists have suggested that action to reduce numbers may be needed sooner than later, especially as the novelty of the birds’ shrieking calls starts to wear off with southwest London’s gentrified hoi polloi. But I reckon those in Aberdeen are on borrowed time!
