London parakeets: where to see them, and where they came from

There are parrots living wild in London, in numbers, all year round. People who have lived here for decades still stop dead when a flock of forty screeches over a park. They are not escapees from last week. They are established, breeding and, by now, thoroughly Londoner.

What they actually are

Ring-necked parakeets, Psittacula krameri, and per the RSPB they are the UK’s only naturalised parrot. Medium-sized at 38 to 42cm including the tail, bright green, with a red beak and a pink and black ring around the face and neck on the males.

In flight they are unmistakable once you know: pointed wings, very long tail, and a straight, fast, steady line rather than the dipping flight of most British birds. You will usually hear them first. The call is a loud, harsh screech and it carries.

They eat fruit, berries, nuts and seeds, which is why they are so at home in London: the city is full of ornamental trees, garden feeders and orchards gone feral. They gather in flocks that can reach hundreds at a roost site, and a roost at dusk is genuinely one of the odder sights in the city.

Where to see them

South-west and west London is the stronghold. Richmond Park is the reliable one, particularly around the car parks and the older trees, and the birds there are notoriously willing to come to a hand holding food. Kew, Bushy Park and Wimbledon Common all hold good numbers.

Central London has them too. Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens, particularly around the Italian Gardens and the older plane trees, and Battersea Park. East and south, Greenwich Park is the dependable one.

Best time is early morning or the hour before dusk, when they move between feeding grounds and roost. Winter is easier than summer, because bare trees hide nothing and the flocks are larger.

Where they came from, and why nobody knows

Three stories get repeated as fact and none of them is proven.

The first is that Jimi Hendrix released a breeding pair in Carnaby Street in the 1960s. The second is that they escaped from the set of The African Queen at Shepperton Studios. The third is that an aviary was damaged in the great storm of 1987 and the birds got out.

They are good stories and they are told constantly, including by people who should know better. The likeliest explanation is much duller: decades of small escapes and deliberate releases from the pet trade, accumulating until a population reached the size where it could sustain itself. No single dramatic event required.

Are they a problem

It depends who you ask, and it is genuinely contested rather than settled. They compete for nest holes with native hole-nesting birds, and they can strip fruit crops. Against that, they have been here for decades without an obvious collapse in the species they supposedly displace. The RSPB lists their UK conservation status as not assessed.

What is not in doubt is that they are here to stay, and that a green parrot in a London plane tree remains one of the best free things the city offers.

More free London outdoors

Free things to do in London has the full list, London walks covers the routes, and stargazing is the after-dark version of standing in a park looking upwards.