..and a goofy bonus bird :)
this post was submitted on 27 Feb 2024
85 points (96.7% liked)
birding
3588 readers
2 users here now
A community for people who like birds, birdwatching and birding in general!
Feel free to share your photos and other birding-related content here. If a photo you post isn't yours, please credit the original creator! Additionally, it would be appreciated if the location of the sighting and a date were given when a photo or question is posted. You do not have to give the precise location, something like "Northern Idaho, June 2023" or even "North-Western US, June 2023" suffices.
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
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 @[email protected] said, they surely weren't as present when i moved here. Then again from what i read, the population is only slightly growing.
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.
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!
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 😀