The Parakeet (formally The Parrot) Thread (i.e. DJ not required - Lounge suit only because ...)

[Michael Palaeologus]

Saw one today near Ondine Road - little green beggar, rather loud. I am assuming it was one of those Australian Green Parrots that are settling in.

Is there a flock locally?

[citizenED]

Are you sure it wasn't an ex-parrot, MP?

[macker]

There's flocking loads of them

[SeanMacGabhann]

Saw one today near Ondine Road - little green beggar, rather loud. I am assuming it was one of those Australian Green Parrots that are settling in.

Is there a flock locally?

[SeanMacGabhann]

PS - nice first post macker. Makes you sound like someone who has followed the forum for a while...

[Asset]

There's loads of them. They are ringnecked parakeets. last estimate I read was a population 10,000 in London alone.

[downsouth]

They normally reside in Dulwich Park. I think they are green parakeets which are noisy little so and so's.

http://www.worldbirdingcenter.org/bird_info/images/green_parakeet.jpg

[Brendan]

I often see them on the golf course (feel free to bring my taste in trousers into question) in Beckenham. I've also seen them in Dulwich Park and I saw 1 on Peckham Rye last week.

There are shedloads in SW London.

[redrouge]

And I thought I was going mad! No one believed that I could see parrots in my garden! Everyone thought I was making it up!

[Michael Palaeologus]

I hear them in my flat. Thats me in the flat, not them - hence I have never actually seem them when peering out of my windows. I am opposite Goose Green and near Peckham Rye - perhaps they are spreading their little green wings?

[Nero]

There are a fair few in Peckham Rye Park, more than in Dulwich Park, in my opinion. The urban myth is that they were released in the 50s at a film studio as a practical joke and it went from there. Nero

[Michael Palaeologus]

There are a load in West London.

If both populations spread and make first contact - will we have "Parrot Wars"?

[Brendan]

My personal theory is that they are descended from a group of pigeons that nested in an old nuclear waste container that washed up on the banks of the Thames sometime in the ?80s.

Their is an innocuous office in a building on Whitehall filled with filling cabinets and a messy haired man in a tweed suit who has been cataloging their activities since the early ?90s.

A pair of MI5 agents engaged on another line of enquiry* have been following a trail of clues that has led them to his door.

*A pensive young man (perhaps played by a young Jack Palance) and his domineering, fast talking, sexy female partner (definitely Billy Piper).

[shaman]

Had colonies in Peckham Rye and Dulwich park for the last few years HitherGreen Cementry is packed at night dusk is like a scene from Alfred Hitchcock when they all come in to roost.

[downsouth]

I think the largest colonies are in Richmond and Bushy Parks. They spread out from there.

[lozzyloz]

I had no idea that when Polly and Peter escaped their cage in 1991 from our flat in Richmond that it would come to this. Should've had them neutered.

[david_carnell]

Parakeets in Norwood

The BBC has questions...and answers

They're taking over London!

Someone has even put YouTube footage of them online but I don't think that sort of time-wasting behaviour should be encouraged so I'm not linking to that. :-S

[Michael Palaeologus]

Ref Neutered Parrots - "Nature always finds a way" as somebody in Jurassic Park. So it must be true.

[Brendan]

Parrots are indeed descended from dinosaurs.

I?m glad the government is involved.

[lozzyloz]

Look, I took the liberty of examining that parrot when I got it home, and I discovered the only reason that it had been sitting on its perch in the first place was that it had been NAILED there.

[Asset]

They have been seen as far north as Glasgow according to something I read.

[Michael Palaeologus]

I had a query re the whereabouts of the Parrot Thread.

Here's the badger.

[Michael Palaeologus]

Is it me or are there more of them this year?

From where I am, they regularly commute between Goose Green and the Rye - squawking as they go. Last year I heard the occasional squawk but didnt see them - this year they can be seen flying back and forth all the time.

[CamberwellOz]

Mr CamberwellOz said that he heard they were 'set free' off the set of African Queen. Is it too early in the morning to be gullible? Or is he correct?

[Peckhamgatecrasher]

"formerly the parrot"! Is it an ex-parrot?