It seems the borders of Deptford have finally been breached by the Ring-Necked Parakeet, Britain's only naturalised parrot which has been common in much of south-east London for years.
While I've heard and observed them regularly on walks in other pars of Lewisham and Greenwich boroughs, I've never seen them in Deptford before. The last few weeks I've heard their raucous cries frequently from my balcony and it seems that a group of them has taken up residence nearby; presumably the continued expansion of their SE London population means them having to find new territories.
Opinion is split on ring-necked parakeets - some people love the idea of having tropical birds in their back gardens, others (me included) find their squawking cries rather grating. They perch in the high branches of trees and it's not easy to see them except in flight, so it's difficult to decide whether their plummage is sufficiently exotic to excuse all the screeching! That being said, many of our native birds cannot sing for toffee either, and some have just as annoying cries such as the magpie that I can currently hear squawking in the trees nearby.
However there are also genuine concerns about their potential impact on Britain's native species, particularly woodpeckers, starlings and nuthatches with whom the parakeets compete for nesting holes. No detrimental impact has yet been established, but the RSPB is keeping a watching brief on the situation.
