Psittacula parrots in Barcelona, and in Aust

[Frank Hemmings <>]

Further to Michael Norris' comments about Psittacula parrots in
Barcelona, I saw many parrots in Barcelona on a day trip and also in
Sitges where we stayed for a week nearby.  They certainly didn't
appear to be Rose-ringed parrakeets (P. krameri) to me, which I
had seen well on a number of occasions in London.  I put these
Spanish introductions down to the Monk Parrakeet fromSouth America
instead (the only other introduced parrot in my field guide) and given
the choice of the two they appeared closer to this species to me. 
Monk Parrakeets are said to roost colonially, and these birds were doing
exactly that in Date Palms (Phoenix dactylifera) in Guell Park in
the west of Barcelona.

Anyway regardless of species, they were certainly very common there and
no doubt competing with other native birds for nest holes.

As for Psittacula species in Australia,  there was a small
and no doubt unreported colony of Psittacula species, close in
colour to P.krameri, at The Entrance/Long Jetty area adjacent to
Tuggerah Lakes in the '80s.  I never kept records as a teenage
birder, nor did I report anything to any official body, but would be
surprised if others in the area did not note these at the time.  I
saw a few birds at first (can't remember if there were two or three),
which was probably around 1983/84.  They nested within that year in
a hollow at the top of a dead branch in a large Paperbark (Melaleuca
quinquenervia) tree.  I saw them on most, but certainly not all
occasions, when I walked along the cycle track between The Entrance and
Long Jetty which ran alongside Tuggerah Lake.  Since I spent almost
all my school holidays at my gradnparents' house at The Entrance, and
walked this track most mornings, I saw them reasonably often, and there
calls usually revealed their presence  Over the ensuing years the
numbers built up to around 15-20 birds, and they seemed to have moved
slightly further south to Long Jetty.  After about 1988, I never saw
them again.

I don't know if a disease knocked them off, or if they were destroyed as
pests, or even if someone attempted to trap them, or even if they moved
on elsewhere but one year there seemed to be quite a few and then there
were none in any of their old locations.  Since nobody has
subsequently reported them I guess they are well and truly gone. 

I guess we, and not the parrots, were lucky then, but we can't
necessarily hope to be lucky again.  Nowadays, knowing more about
the dangers that introductions of species foreign to an area may bring,
I'd be quick to alert somebody.

Cheers.

Frank

Frank Hemmings
Curator
John T. Waterhouse Herbarium
School of Biological, Environmental and Earth Sciences
University of New South Wales
UNSW SYDNEY 2052
AUSTRALIA

Tel +61 2 9385 3274
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