Forum Topic

Those dratted parakeets

There are hundreds of them in Richmond Park for example, but I've never seem them around here, not until now. But these three were in a garden near Putney common today. 

Richard Carter ● 1918d15 Comments

I like you wonder what impact they are having on the existing eco structure.I'd be very surprised if the numbers we're seeing have established themselves without impacting other wildlife.This sounds like an excellent thesis for someones M.Sc. - if only there were any students around..Another endangered species...

Mark Derry ● 1916d

I've got used to seeing and hearing them now and, yes, they're all around Putney and much of London now - I think they even join in the chorus along with the peacocks at Opera Holland Park ... not that there's much chance of that for a while. I suspect if there's any threat to other birds its more from humans using pesticides, destroying habitats, etc - although there seem to be plenty of other species around striking up a dawn chorus when I want to sleep in ... leave the poor parakeets alone! 

Michael Ixer ● 1917d

Well with all the trees what do you expect there in Chiswick Marina, all along the Thames in the trees. You want trees your get birds.

Barbara Stevens ● 1917d

A few years ago I got out of the library (when you could do that sort of thing) a widely acclaimed book by an American cancer specialist who was also interested in end of life care for the elderly in nursing homes. I think it was Emperor of all the Maladies by Siddhartha Mukherjee, though I've read so many of these things I may have forgotten which.Discussing what might make life pleasanter for these elderly he mentioned having parakeets in the nursing homes. I thought "parakeets! What kind of nutter is he?) A while later I was visiting a New York friend and she suggested we spend the day at the Bronx Zoo. As we strolled past the bird cages in the children's zoo I thought "he means budgies".A language issue which afflicted me many times when I worked in the city.

Elizabeth Balsom ● 1917d

Well done, Rose: that entry must have a great chance of being voted the prize for the daftest/most irrelevant insertion of an anti-cycling remark into a post that has nothing whatever to do with it! No doubt you'll claim it was "a joke" 😬

Richard Carter ● 1917d

Also worth noting it isn't just the UK they are colonizing, or even just Europe.  I was camping beside the river Jordan a few years ago, next to a mango orchard.  I heard a familiar bird call and was amazed to see a flock of green parakeets... The mango orchard farmer told me that they had appeared in Israel and Jordan a few years earlier and were quite a problem for fruit farmers.

Rose Compton ● 1917d

Also worth noting it isn't just the UK they are colonizing, or even just Europe.  I was camping beside the river Jordan a few years ago, next to a mango orchard.  I heard a familiar bird call and was amazed to see a flock of green parakeets... The mango orchard farmer told me that they had appeared in Israel and Jordan a few years earlier and were quite a problem for fruit farmers.

Rose Compton ● 1917d

They have been in this area for 50-odd years.  In fact Putney/Richmond was the epicentre of the UK's parakeet invasion. I remember finding a fledgling on the Upper Richmond Road in Sheen when I was 7 or 8, and the Richmond Park flock was known and well established a few years later in the 70s.  One reason that people do not notice them (apart from because of speeding single-mindedly on bicycles) is that they tended in the earlier years to fly and perch very high up.  One interesting feature in the last 10 years or so here in Putney is that they are flying lower down, and even beginning to perch below roof height.  I have even seen them on top of railings in Kensington Gardens, eating out of peoples hands.

Rose Compton ● 1917d

Boo! I love crows. Incredibly smart creatures. They always remind me of Flash Harry from the St Trinians films 😃

Sean Hodges ● 1917d

Pesky Parakeets I and others call them.A flock flyovers each day, but lately I have noticed the occasional pair and even a single one.I'm sure my car was victim of one of their stopovers.I prefer them to crows so can't complain.https://teddingtontown.co.uk/2009/10/21/pesky-parakeets-pay-the-price/

Ed Robinson ● 1918d

They are colourful quite beautiful and should not be harmed. 😾 I don't know why you are so surprised to see them in Putney Richard; there were lots of them in the grounds at PHS when I worked there, and I left 10 years ago!

Sue Hammond ● 1918d

They all must have got used to each other in my garden. They all share on the long fat ball feeder, or when they get the peanuts, then the squirrels join in as well. The squirrel comes to the french doors and takes the nuts or a whole piece of bread and runs off with it.

Barbara Stevens ● 1918d

They are indeed everywhere.  They were discussed on R4 on Sunday morning and they have been reported all over England, even in Northumberland.  Their stronghold remain southwest London.  Lucky us.  I am ambivalent about them - they are intrusive and noisy but they are very agile and I do enjoy watching how they use their beak as a third leg (in effect).When they come to our feeder they scare off other smaller birds but this is just because they are larger and noisier not because they are aggressive.  The tits and finches and robins soon reappear.  There is some truth to the the suggestion that they are displacing other woodland birds by stealing their nesting sites but the jury is still out on that.

Jonathan Callaway ● 1918d

They're in the garden behind mine, swirling around,  though they haven't yet invaded my minute patch.  I wish they would be culled because I fear they're driving out small song birds.

Elizabeth Balsom ● 1918d

Wonderful birds and they cheer me up with their swalk, simply wonderful

Clifford Cowell ● 1918d