Parrot fashion
We never got parakeets in our garden when we lived in Archway. I know these don’t belong here, they’re nasty interlopers from a far-off land whose success on these shores can only spell doom for less fortunate native species, but they’re also bright green. Being bright green is a massive positive as far as I’m concerned, and must count as one of the key failures of, say, the starling. I remember going to visit my grandfather in Australia as a boy and marvelling at the birds he got in his back garden: cockatoos, galahs and most memorably the incredible rainbow lorikeet. And here I am, with parrots parading in my back garden, and I only had to move to East Finchley to achieve it.
A flock of these has set up home in Coldfall Woods, directly behind our house, and we see them pretty much every day. Other than the fact that they make a bit of a racket, it’s hard not to be happy about it. Though there’s also a woodpecker who we see much less often, and I’d quickly go without a couple of parakeet visits if I could see a bit more of that.
The picture, incidentally, was taken from my kitchen.
