Dear Readers, when I put up a peanut feeder I was hoping for nuthatches, or even jays, but a ring-necked parakeet is bright enough to cheer up any November afternoon. They are always such a surprise, and at one point there were two of them in the garden (which is 100% more than have ever been here simultaneously in the past). I apologise for the quality of the photo but I was so stunned that I didn’t rush to get my camera and my husband was reduced to snapping the visitors on his phone. Our kitchen window is also filthy because I have been reluctant to cause harm to the spiders who hibernate in the window frame. Being married to me is clearly a bed of roses.

I suspect that Mr/Mrs Parakeet was attempting to dismantle the wire on the nut feeder – they are such dextrous birds, and I fully expect to come downstairs one morning to see a massive hole and no peanuts.

They really are extremely green, but some folk in London are being visited by other colour morphs of the bird, like this yellow one…..

Yellow morph ring-necked parakeet (Photo by Bernard Spragg, New Zealand)

…or this powder-blue one…

Blue morph ring-necked parakeet (Photo by Tanya Dropbear)

These colours do very occasionally appear in the wild, but birds that look like these are probably escaped pets or aviary birds. And when you see the fun that they have in the gardens and woods of East Finchley, careering through the trees like hooligans, scaring the life out of the wood pigeons and making the suburbs ring with their squawking, I can only admire their panache.

What you lookin’ at?