Any parrot experts out there?

Yesterday we caught a glimpse of this parrot in the garden behind ours. Today he stuck around long enough for me to get some photos.








Taken with the 60-250 through my (closed) bedroom window. Heavily cropped too, so they aren't great but hopefully someone knows what sort of parrot it is. It is a big bird, much bigger than a magpie or jackdaw for instance. Definitely not a little parakeet. So does anyone have any idea what it might be, apart from someone's escaped pet that is.

Probably a ring-necked parakeet - they are pretty big and becoming common round our way (SE England)

http://www.rspb.org.uk/birds-and-wildlife/bird-and-wildlife-guides/bird-a-z/r/ri...

ETA: Further research (including your location. Oops!) suggest green rose-ringed parakeet is more likely.

http://mudfooted.com/rose-ringed-parakeet-amsterdam/

Well the internet is full of Parrot experts, those 'experts' who parrot the advice of others without understanding it...

(Sorry couldn't resist - I recon Steve has nailed it anyway)

The parroting, you mean?

They are horrible birds. Moderately pretty, until you realise there are hundreds of them (slight exaggeration - I did once count about 70 on one occasion) filling the trees around. They are loud, strip the buds off the trees, drive out other birds and cr@p over everything.

iirc, there is talk of a cull in the UK because of the damage they do to fields of crops.

It's not a 'Dead Parrot'

--

Nor a Norwegian Blue...

Beautiful plumage .....

The plumage don't enter into it. It's stone dead!

That's the problem with birds, even big ones. This was taken with from a distance too, and cropped, it's the sort of parakeet that infests our ornamental plum trees every so often, a ring necked parakeet...

Thanks for that. Thankfully the thing hasn't been seen since.

I really don't want parakeets in my garden, especially as they compete with woodpeckers for nesting sites. We have a regular great spotted woodpecker visitor, and I have also seen a green woodpecker nearby. A bit worrying now I live in a wooden house! .

I have only ever seem smaller, noisier versions of parakeets in flocks so assumed it was a parrot. Ah well, hopefully it has moved on.

Maybe it will prove too cold for it up here this winter, but since we have a small resident population of wild flamingos living up the coast that seems unlikely.