Corona Wildlife Diary: Day Forty-eight

Day Forty-eight

I took part in yesterday's Back Garden Bird Race with headphones blocking out all bird songs. It was a tense hour. But I was extra anxious because for the past week I have been standing in the garden desperate to hear one specific bird call. While other people have been listening out for the familiar, reassuring call of the Cuckoo or the relaxing, descending song of the Willow Warbler I've been straining to hear the nails-down-the-blackboard screeching of a parrot. 

(You can listen to the racket here )

There's a parrot in the neighborhood. I've never seen a Ring-necked Parakeet in this neck of the woods and on Friday my colleague Gemma posted a message that said 

As the parakeet flies, Steyning's not too far from my garden. Now, I'd be first to admit that the screeching of a Ring-necked Parakeet is not a pleasant sound and as a non-native species they have had an impact on our native wildlife, but I was kind of hoping to get a parrot onto my garden list in yesterday's Bird Race.

One of my favourite quotes from The Simpsons comes from Springfield’s vet:  “I love animals. I spend my life saving them and they can't thank me. Well, the parrots can.” No animals are more famed for their ability to talk than parrots (apart from that dog on ‘That’s Life!’ who could say “sausages”, here). Sure, their ‘talking’ is more mimicry than witty after-dinner conversation – a feathered echo chamber – but whether they’re chanting ‘Pieces of Eight’ on a pirate’s shoulder or swearing in front of Auntie Ethel, we humans have been entertained by their backchat for centuries.   

There are around 400 species of parrot on our planet. Their native range encompasses pretty much everywhere south of the Tropic of Cancer. For us Brits, their beautiful plumage embodies the exotic; the mystery and excitement of faraway lands. So imagine the surprise of folks in Lancing over the past few weeks when they saw a big green parrot on their bird feeders. .

(Ring-necked Parakeets in Kent by Dan Davison) 

The Rose-ringed (or Ring-necked) Parakeet looks ridiculously out of place amongst our comparatively drab Starlings, pigeons and crows. With its garish green plumage and red beak it stands out like a clown who has gatecrashed a funeral. And with that squawk – that incessant, demented squawk – there’s no ignoring it.   

South-east England’s parakeets are among the world’s most northerly parrot populations but how did they get here? Some believe they made their great escape from an East London film studio in 1951 after starring alongside Bogart and Hepburn in ‘The African Queen’. Others claim that the parakeets were set ‘Stone Free’ by Jimi Hendrix who liberated them from their plastic cage in his girlfriend’s London flat. I rather like the idea of American sixties music icons being responsible for the spread of non-native species across the UK. Perhaps Sonny and Cher smuggled a few Grey Squirrels in through customs under their furry waistcoats or maybe a tousle-haired Bob Dylan secretly released some Mink out of the stage door of the Albert Hall in ’66.

 

(Ring-necked Parakeet in Kent by Mark Kilner)

The truth is, with tens of thousands of parakeets being imported into the UK, it was no surprise that a few slipped their chains and flew the coop. Since the end of the sixties these free spirits have been recreating the Summer of Love across the capital. Forming feral colonies the parakeets have filled the air with their joyous, intolerable screeching and squawking; sounds that would make Hendrix and Dylan proud. And as for free love, their blatant fornicating in London’s parks has led to a parakeet population explosion.

Surely it’s only a matter of time before the Rose-ringed Parakeet moves into suburban Sussex. They were once established in the (sub)urban jungle of Brighton and lived in the trees of Hollingbury from 1977 until the mid-nineties.

Meanwhile, there's currently a Ring-necked Parakeet out there somewhere. Flying wild, vibrant and free around our gardens and gawping at us through the kitchen window as we stand there trapped in our repetitive quarantine.

It's probably peering in at us and thinking "Who’s a pretty boy then?". 

(Collage made by me while I was listening to The Jimi Hendrix Experience on a Sunday night)