Head Space Daily Words...

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...