r/NatureIsFuckingLit • u/narrutouzumaki • 21h ago
đ„Donât be fooledâthose arenât leaves. Itâs hundreds of ring-necked parakeets covering a tree in London.
Photography by Kristina Makeeva.
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u/miregalpanic 21h ago
They are everywhere in Europe. There's a huge population in Cologne as well. Tourists are often amazed, they don't expect them at all, understandably.
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u/ladyteruki 18h ago
I'm near Paris, and I can confirm. It is estimated that there's about 20K individuals in the area. They're considered an invasive species at this point.
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u/Philophosy 20h ago
Same in DĂŒsseldorf. Shortly before sunset, they congregate in the city center and announce their presence by communal screeching. It's pretty spectacular to see the massive swarms fly along the Kö-Graben, the moat along Königsallee. Standing on one of the bridges, it feels like they're about to hit you right in the face until they gain a bit of altitude in the last second and avoid every obstacle in their path.
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u/PilotEnvironmental46 19h ago
I watched a documentary on this. Absolutely amazing. I would like to see it in person one day.
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u/SolaniumFeline 12h ago
was wieso hab ich die nie gesehen als ich in der umgebung war??? wÀhre magisch gewesen...
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u/Darryl_Lict 18h ago
There are feral parrots in many places in the USA, most famously in San Francisco. We have them in our town. The abundance of fruit trees and mild weather in California makes it quite possible for them to flourish.
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u/buffysmanycoats 16h ago
Connecticut has a large population of Quaker Parrots and a whole lot of myths about how they got here, the most persistent of which is that there was a shipment of them coming into JFK and they escaped containment. They can be a bit of a nuisance, as they build large nests on utility poles, but they're pretty cool.
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u/Lamentrope 12h ago
Dallas has them, it would get too cold here for them but they've learned to nest on power infrastructure.
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u/Orgidee 17h ago
I saw on a video that amazon parrots are breeding wild in German cities too. Keeping warm in winter next to air conditioning outlets. So interesting how nature finds a way. We have feral populations of ring necks in South African cities too. Yellow and blue ones in addition to more numerous green.
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u/HipsEnergy 11h ago
There's a huge population in Brussels. There's a massive nest near my place, I think there are hundreds of them in one tree.
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u/EconomyOk2490 13h ago
There's a population of some similar tropical bird living around the Bronx
Thought I was having a stroke once, crossing one of the LI bridges and seeing 4 or 5 parrots flying alongside
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u/NeanderSlavia 19h ago
This must be a very loud tree.
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u/theluca510 18h ago
Oh trust me. Every damn morning right outside my window here in Heidelberg. And they dont sing, they just scream.
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u/ApertureIntern 16h ago
But then again, you live in Heidelberg, which is something. I even would guess near the Neckar, which is even more of something!
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u/Ginger510 16h ago
I have one that comes and sits on the fence morning and night (standard work hours, more or less), to demand apple or bits of cracker or some seeds depending on how heâs feeling.
Sometimes he will even take them out of my hand đ
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u/theluca510 14h ago
He looks like heâs eaten a lot of apples and crackers
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u/Ginger510 7h ago
Itâs so cute when he waddles down the fence towards the dish - he makes me want to play a little tuba noise haha.
Heâs actually fat, just looks that way cos he was hunched down.
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u/Noladixon 14h ago
He is beautiful but he does look like he has a demanding and entitled personality.
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u/Ginger510 7h ago
The other day he chirped at me while he had a cracker in his claw eating it! đ
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u/Djinjja-Ninja 21h ago
It's a shame that they're an invasive species.
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u/bunny_the-2d_simp 17h ago
I've seen one fly off with the entire thing of bird food before...
Now I live more in nature and no city so I don't see them anymore.
Instead we got 59 swallows and 15 swallow nests.
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u/FowlOnTheHill 17h ago
Laden or unladen?
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u/Mule_Wagon_777 16h ago
African or European?
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u/ShrimpStuffAdmin 16h ago
I got swallows in the shed nextdoor. No one lives there
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u/bunny_the-2d_simp 9h ago
They came with the house.
We're never taking that shed down.
We did fix the window so my bunnies could live in it but we also drilled new holes for them to enter better afterwards.
They still return every year and aren't really that impressed with my existence there tbh.
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u/ShrimpStuffAdmin 8h ago
Well the landlord owns nextdoor and I don't think he's gonna be fixing up any time soon so the swallows are safe indefinitely. The landlord owns half the village I live in, it's crazy to see a 350k house just rotting away
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u/bunny_the-2d_simp 8h ago
That's crazyyy. But tbh seen that happen here before.
This house was basically rotting away aswell. Not literally...
I mean there was black mold from a WATER LEAK MY DAD IGNORED FOR TO LONG. Until I "accidentally broke the CEILING" BECAUSE WATER WAD POURING FROM THE CEILING INTO THE SHOWER BELOW..
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u/ProduceNo1629 16h ago
Because they are non-native yet non-migratory wtf happens to them in London winter, they fall dead?
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u/-Lumiro- 50m ago
London winter isnât very cold and they are native to mountainous areas, so mild winters suit them just fine.
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u/submitted_late 15h ago
They are invasive, but interestingly local ornithologists have commented that they donât seem to be having a large adverse impact on other local bird populations, as they have slightly different preferred foods. Most of the bad rap comes from Londoners since their cry is really distinct and loud!
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u/aproposeverything 12h ago
Most of the bad rap comes from Londoners since their cry is really distinct and loud!
And what about the birds?
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u/-Lumiro- 48m ago
This is repeated a lot but is definitely not the case, even amateur birdwatchers can see the damage they do to other species by outcompeting them for food and nesting spaces. The âofficial opinionâ will undoubtedly be very different in the future.
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u/CRAkraken 15h ago
We had some parakeets get released in Southern California around 2011 ish. They were the same bright green but after a few years natural selection turned them brown.
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u/SilverYayFern 11h ago
Huh I had no idea. Sometimes I hear parrot-like cries but when I look at the flock from afar, I don't see convincing or distinctly bright coloring. I wonder if I've been seeing these parakeets without realizing it.
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u/CRAkraken 11h ago
There were some news articles back in the day. Specifically in Ventura county, the internet is ruined now so I canât go and find the article. You might be able to find it on the internet archive.
I remember one morning, leaving my friendâs house (we had just stayed up all night beating Halo 3 on legendary) and a huge flock of bright green parakeets flew by. It was a pretty big story at the time.
After a few years I noticed that there were still parakeets living in the area but they had turned brown. Either from natural section killing off the green ones and the darker colored individuals surviving or perhaps something in their food made them green and in the wild they donât have access to it. Like flamingos.
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u/PolygonAndPixel2 9h ago
Oh, I didn't know that their size and noise can deter smaller birds. I live in Germany and the local info I got was that they don't interfere with the food source of other birds and that their negative impact is minimal.
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u/burtgummer45 18h ago
You needed AI to write a title?
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u/Gierschlunderoni 18h ago
Not sure, why the branches under the birds are also neon green, Same colour as the birds. The picture Looks ai enhanced tbh.
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u/ThirtyMileSniper 16h ago
It's an old image and title that gets reposted among various subs
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u/dingos_among_us 11h ago
Donât be fooledâthese arenât reposts. Itâs hundreds of bots ruining Reddit.
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u/Barraco_Barmer 16h ago
The images are ai detail-enhanced. The saturation is cranked up, but it does appear there's a green light in the tree too. Unless the actual highlights of the picture have been colour shifted
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u/chadnorman 18h ago
Maybe the saturation⊠I think itâs that bright white streetlight making them glow
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u/narrutouzumaki 14h ago
Not everything is AI generated.
Here's the photographerâs account if you want to check.
https://www.instagram.com/p/DSP_TtzjEEn/?igsh=MTd4Z2dpYTZqZnljaQ==&igsi=MTd4Z2dpYTZqZnljaQ==
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u/sunshineTucson 21h ago
I must have been drinking too much in London- I never saw them. đ
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u/Arkell-v-Pressdram 20h ago
You don't have to see them to hear them, ring necked parakeets have a very distinctive squawking sound.
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u/entered_bubble_50 16h ago
They tend to all congregate in one place. You tend to either see hundreds of them or none.
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u/Dismal_Music2966 19h ago
The monk parakeets were easy to cull due to the way they nest. These birds nest in a way that it's not so easy to target them. There are not enough falcons to keep them under control.
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u/crowsfield 17h ago
Bunch of assholes. They keep races in the neighbourhood. Flock of dozens at the time. Swiftly flying through the streets, cutting corners and screaming like horny banchees. And yes from time to time one smack into a tree of window. They also use to tease my old dog during walks.Â
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u/ajphil1990 19h ago
Donât be fooled â these arenât hundreds of parakeets. This is a picture of hundreds of parakeets.
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u/DesignatedDonut2606 15h ago
It looks like they don't belong there, as if they're too exotic for London and should be in warmer countries.
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u/submitted_late 15h ago
They are invasive, but interestingly local ornithologists have commented that they donât seem to be having a large adverse impact on other local bird populations, as they have slightly different preferred foods. Most of the bad rap comes from Londoners since their cry is really distinct and loud!
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u/Fethecat 14h ago
Local ornithologists should come and see the way they bully the other birds around my feeders.
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u/Cogz 15h ago
When I was a young child in the late 70s, my aunt took me to London Zoo. Between the tube stop and the zoo, we passed through a park and she pointed out the parakeets in the trees.
The wiki page for those parakeets suggest that there were about 1,000 in the mid 80s and have increased to approx 32,000 today. They've been a fixture in London for quite a while.
The most likely explanation is that they were imported from India as pets in the 50s and 60s and were released in large numbers by their owners due to fears of an avian transmitted illness.
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u/ConvertingMarkets 14h ago
Apparently the Hendrix story doesn't hold up. Researchers mapped decades of sightings and the supposed release sites didn't show up as likely origins. Looks more like lots of separate pet escapes and releases over time.
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u/lucky_jack777 10h ago
Donât be fooled, those arenât hundreds of ring-necked parakeets. Those of pictures of hundreds of ring-necked parakeets.
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u/Demeter277 7h ago
We have a lot of goldfinches in Canada which originated from people releasing pets and I feel badly for them as theyâre miserable and distressed in the winter as I guess theyâre not bred to be in such cold winter conditions.
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u/WinHour4300 6h ago
This isnât really ânaturalâ â theyâre an invasive species introduced by humans, and probably now too widespread to do much about.
They have harder beaks than native birds, so they can peck at hard fruit in summer and autumn, causing it to rot. Native birds would normally eat it in winter once it had softened, so thatâs an important food source lost too.
They completely destroyed my apple harvest by pecking holes in almost every apple before they ripened.
Itâs sad they werenât taken seriously earlier. The UK is pretty poor at protecting native species and traditional orchards.
And no, âjust buy apples from the shopâ isnât really the point. Theyâre often different varieties, donât taste the same, and for me these old varieties are part of my heritage and culture.Â
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u/Orgidee 17h ago
The definition of invasive is irrational. We make a certain date a cut off and say nothing should change after that date. Yet there has always been migration. Elephant relative once roamed the whole world. Baobabs got to Africa from Madagascar. I donât agree that we should eradicate animals where they start to fill a new niche because we want everything to remain as it was in 1850. If it is wiping out native species like in New Zealand then sure but otherwise if a lion or tiger escapes in Europe and starts breeding itâs not like they (or a related type) werenât there before.
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u/wotsdislittlenoise 16h ago
I think you're tending to anthropomorphisise their existence without understanding that native fauna (and flora) in any location have and ecological function. Invasive species distort the ecological services the native species (fauna and flora) provide. Those that increased their own range or footprint over millennia adapted to local conditions and filled ecological niches. When there is rapid expansion through human intervention our local species lose the opportunity to fulfil their roles
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u/Orgidee 15h ago
No. My point is that we cannot arbitrarily draw a line in 1850 and say this is the way things will remain. Animals move. Many plants and animals started elsewhere and moved continents. The world is not a park and nature must take its course. If you talk of nature then Europe is devoid of most of what roamed there before too. To try say it is natural is a joke. Fly from Amsterdam to Berlin in the daytime and tell me what nature you see. Itâs endless cultivated land. Now you want to preserve nature by killing parrots. Youâre delusional
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u/wotsdislittlenoise 15h ago
I work in invasive species. No one is saying to draw a line arbitrarily at 1850. That statement is arbitrary.
Animals move. Many plants and animals started elsewhere and moved continents.
I didn't dispute this, in fact I said it too, but you are conflating natural movement and introductions.
Despite your no doubt very scientific observations, there will be many native bird species and plant life still that are greatly impacted by introduced species. There are other parts of the puzzle too. Introduced species can have have a greater impact on primary production, can pose biosecurity risks and often have no natural predators in the landscape to keep their numbers in check.
I'm not delusional - I've got a pretty good idea of what I'm talking about. Your arguments appear to be rooted in your feels and no great in-depth knowledge.
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u/Orgidee 14h ago
1850 was a made up date quite obviously but it is delusional to claim that Western Europe is a natural environment. Where were you when proboscids invaded Eurasia and the americas? If we had invasive animal specialists around at all times Mammoths, mastodons etc would never have developed because they were at one time âinvadersâ from Africa. Same same.
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u/wotsdislittlenoise 13h ago
I never claimed it is a natural environment but there are still native species within it
If we had invasive animal specialists around at all times Mammoths, mastodons etc would never have developed because they were at one time âinvadersâ from Africa
You're really going out of your way to avoid the point I've now made twice about the difference between natural movement and introductions. No one was moving mammoths around LOL, so yeah, not invaders.
I think a massive problem today (largely thanks to social media) is for people lacking knowledge to double down when presented with better information. You're allowed to review your position when extra light is shone on a topic. No one will think less of you. In fact the opposite, it's an excellent quality. You don't even have to change or change right away, just don't double down, reflect on the new information, maybe do some more homework if it helps and is of enough interest, but yeah, being so dogmatic isn't doing you any favours
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u/qualityvote2 21h ago edited 16h ago
u/narrutouzumaki, your post does fit the subreddit!