Headspace Daily
has taken a backseat this year. As the world has become a complete shit storm,
my little musings, tunes and photos have felt like an irrelevance, as the pace
of this endless live newsreel called life, has left us all breathless. Anyway,
I am back and will aim to convey the contents of my frazzled brain, on a more
regular basis.
Today, I will
be talking parakeets.
The bottom of
our little garden is dominated by a colossal conifer tree, located at the very
end of the garden belonging to the house directly behind ours. The tree almost
crushes the fence as it bursts into our space. It is completely out of
proportion for the size of the gardens on our street but the result of this, is
that the tree has become an open, urban aviary. At sunrise, the tree squawks
and shrieks with really loud birdlife. Not good on a Saturday morning. At dusk
it is a cacophony of feathered friends, yelling, chattering and seemingly
having a pretty damn good time.
A few weeks ago
I was in a local park, a short walk away from where I live and was quite
astounded to see several green, parrot looking birds with big, bright, orangey
red beaks, flying around and landing in the trees. I had seen a group of
similar looking birds fly over Chiswick Park station once before and a couple
of these green parrot like creatures were in Dulwich Park one time, many years
ago. Chiswick is in the Richmond, Kew area and Dulwich is very well to do. It
has a tollgate situated in the middle of it, so it will feel entitled to a few
birds of paradise. Never before though, has Blythe Hill Fields seen such
rampant exotica. Surely.
Then one day, a
couple of weeks back, one of these urban green parrots was sitting, or rather
perching in the branches of the massive conifer tree. Swaying coolly in the
breeze. I was looking out from the bedroom. Suddenly there was a loud screech
and in the garden of the house next to the house of the tree of natural wonder,
was another of our green-feathered comrades getting his fill from a bird feeder.
Before you know it, five of these green dive bombers are taking turns to swoop
down from the ridiculously large conifer to enjoy a good feast.
It all makes
sense really. A posse of exotic birds require a large tree to hang out in and a
good supply of nuts. They’ve got it all in one place and are absolutely lording
it up!! Fair play to them.
Looking at the
RSPB web site, they appear to be ring-necked parakeets and alarmingly they can
be ‘found in flocks, numbering hundreds
at a roost site, it can be very noisy.’ Tell me about it. As I’m posting
these words, there is a right din going on behind me and we’ve only got five of
them. I certainly don’t want a remake of The
Birds in my back garden with giant green canaries, thank you very much.
It just goes to
show that sometimes the release you need from the day to day stuff which can
bring you down, can be right there waiting for you in your own back garden.
Someone call Bill Oddie – the new series of Nature Watch is coming from our
house...
