Who’s a chilly boy, then?

WE can be a miserable lot, us conservationists. What with global warming and shrinking habitats and species heading for extinction, it can all get a bit much at times. So I thought I would start the year with a bit of good news; some things at least are getting better. In particular, some species of birds, that part of nature that many of us most easily connect with, are becoming more common.

The end of 2013 saw the publication of the Bird Atlas for Britain and Ireland. Possibly the greatest ever bit of co-ordinated wildlife recording, it involved around 40,000 volunteers recording the ups and downs of all the bird species, in every 10km square in these islands over a four-year period. The result, the most comprehensive view to date of what birds are where and, seeing as slightly more modest bird atlases were created in 1976 and 1995, a pretty clear idea of the winners and losers.

So, which were the winners? Well up by around a quarter since 1995 is the ever-accommodating mallard, always eager to make us happy by eating our stale bread, and the elegant, but bit-too-stroppy, mute swan. Even better is my particular favourite, the buzzard; its mewing call can still give me goosebumps even when it’s only emanating from my son’s virtual medieval war craft game. Buzzards are up by 80 per cent and what was a non-breeding rarity in the lowlands of the North-East only a few years ago, I now see quite regularly on my drive to work.

But none of those is the winner. Topping the table – up by an astonishing 1,057 per cent, is a parrot. That’s right, I did say parrot. Specifically, the ring-necked parakeet; admittedly one of the smaller members of its clan, but still a bright green, hook-billed, raucously squawking, fully-fledged parrot. Not that they are birds that many people will encounter yet; 1,057 per cent might sound a lot, but it’s an increase on not very many at all and the estimated British population is still fewer than 10,000 pairs.

The ring-necked parakeet is a recent colonist, only proven to be breeding for the first time in this country in 1971, down in Kent.

Where they came from no one is entirely sure, but before the Wildlife and Countryside Act in 1981, it was legal to keep exotic birds in a state of semi-liberty and no doubt not all of them came home to roost. One thing is for sure, they didn’t get here by themselves; the parakeets in Britain are the Indian sub-species and their closest natural colonies are probably in Afghanistan.

Another reason most people won’t have seen one is that these are the classic home bird.

They stay by their nest sites throughout the year and never seem to fly more than a comfortable commute from their roost sites. Add to this their high levels of sociability and it ended up with a situation where, at one point, almost the entire UK population of parakeets – then around 3,000 birds – were roosting each night at Esher rugby club in Surrey.

At least that was the case until January 2006 when three ring-necked parakeets mysteriously turned up in Hartlepool. At first they hung around Greatham, but soon moved to the town’s Ward Jackson Park.

Again, it was never established where they came from, but around the same time the odd parakeet was reported from Newcastle and Edinburgh, so possibly there was an eruption of parakeets up the East Coast.

A pair bred at Ormesby Hall, the first wild parrots ever to breed in the North-East. Whatever their origin, they were here to stay. Later that year the three became four, then seven in 2007, with the bright green-snowball gathering pace until the latest count of 37 parakeets.

Even so, they still follow the national trend of staying put and are seldom found beyond the gardens surrounding the park.

A ring-necked parakeet

It is this affinity for gardens that may hold the key to their success. So far, ring-necked parakeets have proved as urban as house sparrows and their conquest of the bird table might be the edge that makes up for their disadvantages.

And being parrots, it’s no surprise that Britain does present them with some disadvantages.

For a start, even by parrot standards, they are prone to frostbite and in Hartlepool they now have the distinction of being the most northerly breeding population of wild parrots anywhere in the world. Added to that, their only clutch each year is laid early when frosts could chill the eggs; that is if they can find a tree with a large enough nest hole.

While they might have some of us scratching our heads as to how they survive, survive they most certainly do and their presence has met with a mixed response.

As they are now on the official British bird list, many birders embrace them as they are not in the least bit difficult to “tick off” and let’s face it, who wouldn’t be excited by the presence of a parrot on their bird table? On the other hand, there are concerns that we will see a decline in native hole-nesting birds as the parakeets increase.

Equally ambivalent is Alistair McLee, chairman of Teesmouth Bird Club’s conservation committee, who muses as to whether the strident shrieking will devalue properties near the bird’s roost sites and turn people against them, or whether we will learn to live with them as we have other exotic introductions, such as pheasants and little owls.

The jury is still out, but one thing is for sure, if the Hartlepool birds increase by 1,000 per cent over the next 20 years, then we will definitely know whether these “pretty pollies” are bad news or good news.

• To take part in the RSPB Big Garden Birdwatch today and tomorrow register at rspc.org.uk/birdwatch