The broadcaster, naturalist and tour guide shares the most breathtaking seasonal events in Britain
SURELY EVERYONE MUST HAVE HEARD of the red arrows, but Britain now has its own wild equivalent in the form of a burgeoning population of ring-necked parakeets. Impossible to miss while either tearing across the sky in British towns and cities, or when forming large and raucous winter roosts, the future for this introduced species appears to be as bright as its plumage.
Myths abound as to how this colourful addition to our avifauna first came to settle in London. One popular theory was that the birds, while another rumour was that Jimi Hendrix released a pair in London’s Carnaby Street as a gesture of peace and love in 1968. However, the more prosaic truth is that their original introduction and subsequent spread was a consequence of repeated releases and escapes from captivity. Not recorded as breeding in the wild until 1969, the most recent survey suggested that 12,000 pairs bred in Britain in 2016, with the population continuing to steadily rise.
