view from my exercise bike

[Margaret Audrey]

On Sunday last, seated on my exercise bike in my bedroom I was watching the birds in my garden (South Bucks) There were about a dozen longtailed tits which we haven't seen this summer though several years ago we had a nest of them in a Pyracanthus bush. There was a pair of red legged partridge eating grass and birdseed who seem to have adopted us of late and they alerted me to a newcomer, a pale green parraqueet which ate some crab apples and stood on its head trying to get into the birdfeeder. It flew off after about fifteen minutes. Has anyone else had a sighting of paraqueets apart from the London area where I believe there are colonies?
Margaret Audrey

[actionfinch]

i see one the other week . Herts . was on its own ...

[Wild-Woman]

Ring-necked Parakeets are becoming very much more common, especially in London and the surrounding counties. And yes, there are some substancial colonies,

[Elizabeth B]

We sometimes get one or two parakeets on the hanging feeders, and unfortunately their visits are becoming more frequent. I was horrified to hear that my husband had seen six in a tree in our front garden yesterday.

[~T~]

Originally Posted by Elizabeth B

We sometimes get one or two parakeets on the hanging feeders, and unfortunately their visits are becoming more frequent. I was horrified to hear that my husband had seen six in a tree in our front garden yesterday.

Do they bully other birds or something?

[Elizabeth B]

At the moment we don't have them in sufficient numbers to bother the other birds - but for how long will we be left in (relative) peace?

They are "invaders", eat a lot, and make a loud unpleasant squawking noise. A friend who gets a lot of parakeets has had her feeders wrecked by them.

[Monkey Orchid]

As far as I'm aware, ring-necked parakeets do compete with native hole-nesting birds for nesting sites; they can also damage crops e.g. fruit crops.

When I used to work in a public park in Maidenhead we regularly saw flocks of a dozen or so, you could always hear them screeching somewhere in the park. They regularly nested in holes in an old plane tree; one one occasion I remember the nest was raided by crows, who hauled out and ate the fledgling parakeets. Gruesome, but perhaps an indication that native birds might be able to get some benefit from this beautiful introduced species!