South Manchester - the home to Didsbury and Chorlton, arguably two of the cities most celebrated areas, student hotspot Fallowfield, and a flurry of parakeets.

The parakeet is an indigenous bird of Australia but they've made a nice home for themselves in the much greyer climates of Manchester, and the rest of the North West as it happens.

The reason? The general consensus is they were simply pets that escaped or were intentionally released from captivity way back in the 1970s.

Wilder theories are that ring-necked parakeets were released during the filming of The African Queen in Shepperton in 1951, or by Jimi Hendrix when he let a pair go free in London in the 1960s. A less extraordinary theory is that the 1987 storms damaged so many aviaries that many parakeets escaped.

It is estimated there are around 30,000 of them in the wild around the UK with a flock of 1,000 recently being spotted in a park in Preston according to Alan Wright, Communications Manager for The Wildlife Trust in Lancashire, Manchester and North Merseyside.

They're a colourful addition to the country's wildlife and it's exciting if you do spot them out and about but sadly they are a problem for native birds because of their sheer numbers.

South Manchester is a hotspot for the parakeet

Still, it's a pretty superb achievement for the birds, and the saying 'nature always finds away' really rings true here.

"You have to be impressed with their ability to adapt to shivery Britain," Wright wrote in the M.E.N back in 2016.

Their relocation to the UK has made them the country's only naturalised parrot and the most northerly breeding parrot in the world.

This refusal to let the cold weather affect them is part of the problem. "The worrying thing as far as invasive species are concerned is that they may be out-competing our native wildlife for food," Wright added.

It's a concern that is echoed by Dr Hazel Jackson, Science Director of Animal Free Research UK . In a talk for the Durrell Institute of Conservation and Energy at the back-end of last year, Dr. Jackson mentioned that although there hasn't been a huge number of studies, these studies have highlighted that there is a competition for resources which affects typical garden birds.

"A study in London found that with the presence of ring-necked parakeets you have smaller native garden birds."

Parakeet in Platt Fields
A parakeet in Platt Fields

They can also be an agricultural pest, in fact, in their native countries they are often considered exactly that. "In the Seychelles the ring-necked parakeets nearly had a devastating impact on the native black parrots so culling the invasive parakeet was the only way," Dr Jackson also says.

"So, we absolutely need to protect native species and while I love ring-necked parakeets but I want a world filled with lots of unique and wonderful biodiversity, not just ring-necked parakeets."

As of yet, there are no more than murmurings about if the invasive species is a real threat commercially and economically so culling is extremely unlikely as Jackson thinks they "should be considered and mitigated on a case by case basis."

So, why not head down to your local park this weekend and try and spot a flock?

Potential locations to spot the parakeets:

  • Heaton Park
  • Whitworth Park
  • Reddish Vale Park
  • Chorlton Water Park
  • Fletcher Moss Park and Botanical Gardens
  • Bruntwood Park
  • Bramhall Park and Gardens
  • Reddish Vale Park

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