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Last Updated: Tuesday, 6 July 2004, 12:40 GMT 13:40 UK

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Wild parrots settle in suburbs
By Sean Coughlan
BBC News education



Back garden in Reigate - picture by Nic Hamilton
The number of wild parrots living in England is rising at 30% per year, says an Oxford University research project.
Parks and gardens in the leafy London suburbs have been adopted as a preferred habitat by birds that are native to southern Asia.

In the Surrey stockbroker belt, a single sports ground is believed to be home to about 3,000 parrots.

The rate of increase, helped by mild winters, is much greater than had been expected.

The findings have also been echoed by a large number of e-mails from BBC News Online readers, who have reported how parrots - particularly parakeets - have now become familiar sights.

Parrot hotspots

These hundreds of e-mails, including photographs, highlighted hotspots such as west of London, Surrey and parts of Kent.


Parakeets in King George Park in Ramsgate, picture by Mark Jobling
But there were also parrots reported in inner-London, including parks in Peckham, Brixton, Greenwich and Kensington.

And a few parrots had been spotted in East Anglia, the North West and in Scotland.

There were also sightings from readers overseas, reporting urban parrots in the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, France, Spain and the United States

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/education/3869815.stm