Whereabouts are you? Ring-necked parakeets have been breeding and established in some areas of the south-east for a while now, interested to see where they’ve got to that’s new!
A memorable bit of my friend’s wedding in Margate was the fact that the entire outdoor ceremony was being drowned out by screeching parakeets in the trees all around. Felt strangely tropical.
Yes, lots of pockets of them in the south east, there used to be some in west London near Ravenscourt Park.
I’m near Heathrow there’s a big flock that lives in long lane cemetery
fun fact from wiki: *The numbers of parakeets remained very low, however, until the mid-1990s, when the population appeared to start increasing rapidly. The population was estimated at 500 birds in 1983, reached 1,500 by 1996, and 5,800 in the London area in 2002 (sheltering in up to 5 roosts).The last official roost count, in 2012, recorded 32,000 parakeets in London.*
The new grey squirrels.
We’ve got flocks of them here in South East London. They are the loudest birds. I understand why they’re considered a pest in some countries. They’re very pretty, though. I’ve never seen one on the ground. Only ever in trees or on roof tops.
I live in south east London. The noisy fuckers are everywhere.
Norwegian Blue
Here you go OP, dusting off the old parakeet info… this might prevent misinformation and nonsense in the comments:
Ring Necked Parakeet info v1.9 with new info addressing some of the reports about them.
Ring-necked parakeets are now found all over the UK and parts of the rest of Europe. They form large colonies, particularly in parks in towns and cities, so they’re quite common in some places. Yes, they probably live in your town, even in Scotland.
They nest in holes in large trees, but prefer open country, so tend to be found in cities and stately homes, where there is parkland with large mature trees. And yes, they are noisy.
They’re originally from India, and some live in the foothills of the Himalayas so are fine with crap weather.
They’re probably descended from escapes from bird collections and pets, but now are self-sustaining feral populations. There’s no evidence that they were released by Jimi Hendrix or from the filming of The African Queen. There have been sightings of them in the UK since Victorian times, and became more widespread across the the UK from the late 1980s.
They are currently protected under the Countryside Act, but are on a list of species (like feral pigeons) that can be controlled in very specific circumstances, following strict licences and guidelines. You can’t just shoot them because they annoy you or you don’t like them: it has to be for the reasons covered by general licences. The main reason would be because they are damaging your fruit crops. The government, with Natural England and the BOU, are monitoring their effects on native wildlife and have been for the last 10 years or so. So far there is very little definite evidence that they cause harm to our wildlife here in the UK. There are a few studies in Europe showing that they compete with other birds like nuthatches for nest sites, but nothing in the UK. There was also a report a while ago claiming they outcompete native birds at feeders, but the data wasn’t verified or repeated and wasn’t peer reviewed. Therefore there is no plan to cull them, but the law means they can be controlled, if done for the right reasons, in a humane way.
Coming over here, changing our birds…
I was trying to get a photo of the one in my back garden a few weeks ago to show my mum. It was gone by the time I found my phone.
We’ve got them up in Nottingham now too!
I’m a bit north west of London and there’s a flock of 5 that live in the nearby park. Right on the edge of the suburban area.
Noisy buggers, particularly in summer.
There’s a load of Red Kites that were reintroduced since I was a kid. Seeing a bird of prey was quite something when I was a kid in the 90s. Now they’re everywhere.
They are spreading out of the Birmingham area too. Seem to be following the canals to some extent
Parakeets have actually been living in significant colonies in the UK since the 1960s, they became very common by the 1980s in the south of England.
There’s thousands of them living in Glasgow
These things have made it at least far north as Gateshead. A few weeks back I was just walking along when I saw something green go flying past.
I literally did a double take and then I saw them sitting on top of a tree, a pair of them. Fair play to them if they’ve made it this far north.
Remember seeing these my first week of uni in SW London back in 05. Pretty sure other freshers thought I was off my nut in the morning when I pointed out the big green birds flying everywhere
We’ve got some in Sunderland too – Back house park has tons of them. Really pretty, not what you expect to see when walking about.
I saw a huge flock of them in Surrey in 1998
Saw a group of them at my local park in Derby in the summer.
I’m in north west London and see them eating from the apple tree outside all the time! There’s an urban myth that Jimi Hendrix introduced them to the UK by releasing a pair of them back in the 60s lol.
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There’s a colony of them at a friend’s place in Darwen, Lancs
29 comments
saw a crow kill 1 last year out on the field.
it was,…..not quick.
Looks like a female Indian ringneck, I could be wrong, probably am…
I hadn’t heard about the “invasion” until one day last year I was super surprised by a pair noisily raiding my bird feeders when it was snowing.
Edit: West Yorkshire
There’s often been some unexpected species about, like the various Wallaby populations.
[Feral parakeets in Great Britain – Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feral_parakeets_in_Great_Britain)
Whereabouts are you? Ring-necked parakeets have been breeding and established in some areas of the south-east for a while now, interested to see where they’ve got to that’s new!
A memorable bit of my friend’s wedding in Margate was the fact that the entire outdoor ceremony was being drowned out by screeching parakeets in the trees all around. Felt strangely tropical.
Yes, lots of pockets of them in the south east, there used to be some in west London near Ravenscourt Park.
I’m near Heathrow there’s a big flock that lives in long lane cemetery
fun fact from wiki: *The numbers of parakeets remained very low, however, until the mid-1990s, when the population appeared to start increasing rapidly. The population was estimated at 500 birds in 1983, reached 1,500 by 1996, and 5,800 in the London area in 2002 (sheltering in up to 5 roosts).The last official roost count, in 2012, recorded 32,000 parakeets in London.*
The new grey squirrels.
We’ve got flocks of them here in South East London. They are the loudest birds. I understand why they’re considered a pest in some countries. They’re very pretty, though. I’ve never seen one on the ground. Only ever in trees or on roof tops.
I live in south east London. The noisy fuckers are everywhere.
Norwegian Blue
Here you go OP, dusting off the old parakeet info… this might prevent misinformation and nonsense in the comments:
Ring Necked Parakeet info v1.9 with new info addressing some of the reports about them.
Ring-necked parakeets are now found all over the UK and parts of the rest of Europe. They form large colonies, particularly in parks in towns and cities, so they’re quite common in some places. Yes, they probably live in your town, even in Scotland.
They nest in holes in large trees, but prefer open country, so tend to be found in cities and stately homes, where there is parkland with large mature trees. And yes, they are noisy.
They’re originally from India, and some live in the foothills of the Himalayas so are fine with crap weather.
They’re probably descended from escapes from bird collections and pets, but now are self-sustaining feral populations. There’s no evidence that they were released by Jimi Hendrix or from the filming of The African Queen. There have been sightings of them in the UK since Victorian times, and became more widespread across the the UK from the late 1980s.
They are currently protected under the Countryside Act, but are on a list of species (like feral pigeons) that can be controlled in very specific circumstances, following strict licences and guidelines. You can’t just shoot them because they annoy you or you don’t like them: it has to be for the reasons covered by general licences. The main reason would be because they are damaging your fruit crops. The government, with Natural England and the BOU, are monitoring their effects on native wildlife and have been for the last 10 years or so. So far there is very little definite evidence that they cause harm to our wildlife here in the UK. There are a few studies in Europe showing that they compete with other birds like nuthatches for nest sites, but nothing in the UK. There was also a report a while ago claiming they outcompete native birds at feeders, but the data wasn’t verified or repeated and wasn’t peer reviewed. Therefore there is no plan to cull them, but the law means they can be controlled, if done for the right reasons, in a humane way.
Coming over here, changing our birds…
I was trying to get a photo of the one in my back garden a few weeks ago to show my mum. It was gone by the time I found my phone.
We’ve got them up in Nottingham now too!
I’m a bit north west of London and there’s a flock of 5 that live in the nearby park. Right on the edge of the suburban area.
Noisy buggers, particularly in summer.
There’s a load of Red Kites that were reintroduced since I was a kid. Seeing a bird of prey was quite something when I was a kid in the 90s. Now they’re everywhere.
They are spreading out of the Birmingham area too. Seem to be following the canals to some extent
Parakeets have actually been living in significant colonies in the UK since the 1960s, they became very common by the 1980s in the south of England.
There’s thousands of them living in Glasgow
These things have made it at least far north as Gateshead. A few weeks back I was just walking along when I saw something green go flying past.
I literally did a double take and then I saw them sitting on top of a tree, a pair of them. Fair play to them if they’ve made it this far north.
Remember seeing these my first week of uni in SW London back in 05. Pretty sure other freshers thought I was off my nut in the morning when I pointed out the big green birds flying everywhere
We’ve got some in Sunderland too – Back house park has tons of them. Really pretty, not what you expect to see when walking about.
I saw a huge flock of them in Surrey in 1998
Saw a group of them at my local park in Derby in the summer.
I’m in north west London and see them eating from the apple tree outside all the time! There’s an urban myth that Jimi Hendrix introduced them to the UK by releasing a pair of them back in the 60s lol.
[removed]
There’s a colony of them at a friend’s place in Darwen, Lancs
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