Sometimes, it is easy being green

Shortly after I arrived here, I was walking with Sara, and heard a strange squawk above us. Glancing up, three long-tailed birds with green feathers and rose beaks flew overhead.

Here be parakeets. Green, ring-necked parakeets, to be precise.

There are several major colonies here in suburban south London. By last year, their numbers were estimated at 40,000.

As to the how, there are various urban myths: parakeet couples escaping from quarantine; of Jimi Hendrix releasing birds in the 1960s in an attempt to jazz up the grey. But the birds have been bred in the UK since the late 19th century, so they probably just got into wild, and discovered they were unperturbed by the winter chill.

Whatever their origin, their green does lush the place up!