Watch: Exotic wild parakeets caught on camera at Yorkshire nature reserve

A colony of ring-necked parakeets has been caught on camera in Yorkshire.

The non-migratory African birds, which have exotic green plumage, are not native to the UK, but have bred here since escaping from captivity in the late 1960s.

Although there are over 30,000 of them, they are concentrated mainly in London and the south-east of England, where they are a common sight in areas such as Hampstead Heath and Kew Gardens.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

The footage, taken this month by Lee Collings, shows parakeets living in Allerton Bywater and at the RSPB Fairburn Ings nature reserve, near Castleford.

Small populations have been recorded in northern Britain, including in Manchester and Edinburgh, but it is not known if they have established a breeding colony in West Yorkshire before now. A colony in Sheffield was threatened with culling.

Although parakeets have lived in London's parks since in significant numbers since around 1969, their population exploded in the 1990s as milder winters enabled them to become more established.

Their origins are uncertain. Although scientists believe it's most likely that they escaped from private aviaries, there are some more outlandish theories. It's been suggested that a group imported to Ealing Studios during filming of The African Queen in 1951 escaped, and that a breeding pair were released on Carnaby Street by Jimi Hendrix in the 1960s. A pet shop also reported an escape in the 1970s, and it's possible that damage to aviaries during the Great Storm of 1987 led to another another exodus into the wild.