"Martin" wrote

"Bob Hobden" wrote:

"Dave Poole" wrote ...

Soft blue and even white variations also exist although the colour
variants
rarely occur in wild populations or last for long due to them being more
easily targeted by predators. I had a blue male and yellow female many
years ago - my intention being to breed them for whites. Their incessant
screeching put paid to that plan and I passed them back to the breeder.

They are obvious in the winter with no leaves on the trees but it always
amazes me how such a brightly coloured bird can disappear amongst leaves
in
the summer, if they kept quiet.
Can you imagine what is was like at Esher Rugby Club where 4,000+ used to
roost every evening. :-)

Were there really 4,000? Claims that there were 600 parakeets in a
Dutch park were checked by experts. 600 turned out to be around a
dozen. Our parakeets seem to be quiet. Maybe because they don't roost
in our garden. Their favourite food is unopened buds and flowers on
our chestnut trees. Somewhere on internet I read that Europe's wild
parakeets originate from a royal park in Brussels, where they were
deliberately released to make the park more colourful. There are wild
parakeets in Paris parks too.

Yes, estimates were between 4 to 6 thousand birds. Certainly at the time we
used to have flocks of 40 or 50 birds (I counted) flying over in the evening
and it was a constant stream of flocks of various size for an hour or so.
They seem to have changed their roosting pattern now.
--
Regards. Bob Hobden.
Posted to this Newsgroup from the W of London, UK