Dear Readers, the origin of the ‘invasion’ of London by ring-necked parakeets has been a source of speculation for decades. Here are just some of the stories.

• Jimi Hendrix released a pair of parakeets from his flat in Brook Street, London, while on an LSD trip back in the 1960s
• The parakeets escaped from the set of The African Queen while it was being filmed at Shepperton Studios
• The birds escaped from aviaries destroyed during the Great Storm of 1987 (this one is easily rebuffed – ring-necked parakeets were already spreading in London back in the 1970s.

For various reasons, all of these theories, attractive though some of them are, don’t quite fit the bill, so I was interested to read a report in The Guardian today by Tim Blackburn, a naturalist and author whose work I greatly enjoy (I currently have ‘The Jewel Box’, his book about moths, on my steadily-increasing reading pile). Blackburn has been involved in trying to determine the Geographic Profile (GP) of Britain’s parakeets – this technique aims to track an organism back to its point of origin, and is often used to determine the source of a disease outbreak, or, as in this case, where a novel species came from.

The study has revealed that the parakeets come from more than one source, with two major clusters in Croydon, South London, and Dartford in Kent. The first reports of a breeding population of ring-necked parakeets seems to be from the mid 1960s, but the study points to a ‘scare’ about psittacosis, an infectious and highly dangerous disease transmitted by parrots of all kinds, which was widely publicised during the 1950s. The study conjectures that fear of the disease may have led to the release of pet parrots of all kinds, but ring-necked parakeets are particularly adaptable birds – I’ve seen them roosting happily in sub-zero temperatures in their native India, and they also seem very able to find homes and food in human-influenced habitats.

Pet birds were much more popular when I was growing up than they seem to be now – everybody had a budgerigar or a lovebird or a cockatiel, or sometimes several of these birds. No wonder a health scare had such a big impact.

The study discounts Jimi Hendrix’s ‘trip’ and ‘The African Queen’ as a source of Britain’s parakeets, but doesn’t entirely rule out the theory about damaged aviaries in 1987 as a way of adding birds to the established population – there seems to have been a jump in numbers following the storm. But it also points out that ring-necked parakeets are now established on five continents and in thirty-four countries, so they don’t need a lot of help.

Like so many species, ring-necked parakeets arrived here with our help, and now I think that they’re pretty much here to stay, much like the terrapins that were dumped into our ponds and rivers when the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle craze wore off. It has been possible to completely eradicate some species – nutria, or coypu, were widespread on the south coast when I was growing up (they were used for fur, but like all rodents were fond of gnawing, and managed to establish themselves in the ditches and damp areas of Kent, Essex and East Anglia) but were trapped and poisoned to extinction. Mink are also gradually being eradicated from East Anglia (another fur animal, though these were deliberately released, with devastating effects on the ecosystem). But I hope that the parakeets will find their niche alongside our other birds – there is some evidence that small birds nesting close to parakeets do better because predators are not so likely to attack their nests, and also that parakeets often enlarge nest holes, making them easier for birds such as stock doves to use. On the other hand, there are fears that the competition for nest holes will impact bats, nuthatches and woodpeckers. I wonder how it will all play out? I just know that the parakeets always brighten my day with a ridiculous drop of tropical vivacity, especially as I’m mainly housebound at the moment and can only really see them out of the window.

Ring-necked parakeets in St Pancras and Islington Cemetery

Leg Update! Well, my leg is still aching and sore even after my humungous quantities of painkillers, but then the orthopedic surgeon did say it was going to be painful. Off to the hospital for a check on how things are going tomorrow, so will keep you posted!