Parakeets
It was about a decade ago, during those twilight days between Christmas and New Year, that I first noticed them. We'd met up with friends at Millfield Lane to take the kids for a walk and to gently work out our atrophied limbs, bloated bellies and blow away the cobwebs of festive excess from our throbbing heads. At that time they were difficult to spot, perched up high in the trees on the edge of the Heath, only their occasional squawking gave them away. We laughed and pointed at their incongruous greenness in the dull grey of midwinter.
Legend has it that the country's first Parakeets were introduced by Henry VIII, but surely not everything can be attributed to that monarch (tennis, Greensleeves, divorce, ...parrots)? A more recent myth is that they escaped from the set of 'The African Queen' which was filmed at Shepperton Studios in the 1950s. I like the thought that they tried to escape Bogart's fag fug. But my favourite theory has to be that of renowned geek and fancy bird breeder Jimmy Hendrix, who, it is said, while living in Carnaby Street in the 1960s (presumably between filling in his train-spotting diary and collating his first day covers), set a pair free. Maybe he released them into the cross town traffic like white doves from his hands, in a homage to freedom: "fly my pretties!", or maybe he was high.
I'm adding my own urban myth here in the hope that it might take off, like an elegant bird of paradise: when Marty Feldman was breathing his last breath in his über-gothic pile in Cannon Place, his final words were: "Release the parrots as a token of my affection, tell Frau Blücher I loved her".
This year, around that same Christmas limbo period, we tramped through the chilly Heath woods, past the holly and the ivy, with a breakfast at Kenwood in our sights. All this to the sound of.... a tropical Indian rain forest. No robins or blackbirds or little sparrows twittered, well if they did, they certainly couldn't be heard over the cacophony of squawks from the flocks of parakeets buzzing us from above. Is it 'flocks'? I know its a 'murder' of crows. Maybe a collective of parakeets should be called a Klaxon, or a Honk. Whatever, all I know is that the birds that we once wondered at as rare and exotic, have now become 'common or garden' and a blight on our surroundings. Clearly parakeets show no restraint in their urges, their population explosion reaches every borough of London (...and a parakeet squawked in Berkley Square) and the departure of beloved garden birds is so noted that parakeets are being likened to the monstrous grey squirrel, which caused the demise of the indigenous and much cuter red squirrel. RIP Squirrellus Nutkinious.
It quite literally dawned on me not so long ago that the dawn chorus no longer exists. No, it has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that I wake up long after the birds... I no longer even hear the crows caw from across the cemetery. All I hear in the morning is the distant buzz of the Finchely Road and the screeching of those pesky birds as they dive bomb the High Street. Every time I complain about Parakeets I feel like Nigel Farage shaking a vigorous fist at recently arrived immigrants. Not embracing these little green aliens and clasping them to my bosom feels downright wrong, however, parakeets are no better than vermin. No one would blame me for wanting to eradicate rats from our environs and, lets face it, I'm sure Londoners are genuinely never more than six feet away from a parakeet. Go on, take a quick look over your shoulder. (The blighters hide you know.)
Parakeets can be likened to history's mighty conquerors and brutal dictators as they overthrow gardens and decimate buds & berries, sending our tits into hiding. Isn't it time to thwart these flapping parasites? Shouldn't we lobby for a parrot open season? I feel like a revolting peasant, and I say lets storm the Heath with slingshots, bows, quivers, twelve-bores and uzies! Lets put Parakeet on the menu! Pan-fried parakeet on toast in the cafés, spit-roast parakeet Sunday special in the pubs. People would teem to the funfair for parakeet-on-a-stick. So come on, meet me by the mixed ponds with your crossbow. You know it makes sense.
