Wow, those parakeets get everywhere! How far North in Europe are you? We get them occasionally in East Anglia but with greater frequency. In London I can show you dozens in some of the parks. They have even been seen as far North as Durham.
Lovely photos by the way 👍
I am in Düsseldorf, which i think is pretty much the northern border for the parakeets along the rhine for now.
Rumor says that 50 years ago about 20 of them escaped from an aviary in cologne and they spread out to the cities along the rhine around cologne. There's about 220 breeding couples in and around my city (2016 data). They are all indian Rose-ringed parakeets.
That's really interesting, thanks Drempels.
London is 51.5° North and Düsseldorf is 51.2° so basically the same, but your winters are a lot colder than ours I imagine, meaning our parakeets can live in places further North, like Durham.
There are many rumours about how they got loose in the UK. One is a music video/film with Jimmy Hendrix at Elstree studios in Borehamwood where they were released as part of the production. There are quite a lot of them in that area so it may be true 🫨
Winters are a lot milder here than they used to be, although if they've been around for 50 years their ancestor made it through colder winters than i have seen i guess. Interesting that they seem to be the same kind of parakeets in London!
I feel like the population grew a lot this century, like @peachfront@toot.community said, they surely weren't as present when i moved here. Then again from what i read, the population is only slightly growing.
"Birds of Spitalfields," (London) was published in 1832, includes Rose-ringed Parakeet as one of the species present in the area so a small population was already present by then
saw a painting c.1500s in Amsterdam called something like "Hunting of the Parakeets" which would put them there even earlier
it's my guess these birds in Europe date back to the colonial/empire/exploration era but they've only grown large enough to be visible w/ warming climate
I have also seen two species of them in Rome, the rose-ringed and the monks (of which I have some poor quality photos) Climate wise, this is probably less surprising than northern Europe.
Exotic bird markets have long been a thing, so it may be that there have been many small introductions over the last millennia and perhaps further back, I found some references to Ancient Rome. Perhaps only more lately with warmer winters they have been able to establish proper breeding colonies. As an indicator species their movements might be quite telling.
in New Orleans, our introduced parrot is the monk-- same species that is also the introduced parrot of the very different climates of Chicago & Brooklyn, New York! it's interesting to track their march across the planet! in the US, they greatly prefer cities, but i've seen them in rural areas in their native So. America
New Orleans, I bet you get some amazing wildlife in the bayou?
Wow, Chicago and NY, they are obviously far more cold tolerant than I gave them credit for. I'm expecting someone from Alaska along soon!
the Chicago population underwent a large expansion in the 1980s, & i guarantee the winter weather in Chicago in the 80s was famously cold but it seems like if they have enough food (which they can get from feeders from parrot enthusiasts), they'll do well
Harold Washington, first Black mayor of Chicago, in office in the 1980s, considered them his lucky bird & so he & others took them under their wing, so to speak...
(& yes lots of great wildlife, esp birds, in New Orleans)
i feel like they didn't really explode in London until this century but i have a cool book about it by Nick Hunt that's a fun read about all the rumors
https://www.paradiseroad.co.uk/the-parakeeting-of-london-an-adventure-in-gonzo-ornithology
Awesome! I love the fact that someone has taken the time to write this history and that the Hendrix mythology has made it into the book. Thanks for letting us know this exists 😀
