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[BOCA this is for Don Saunders]
Quite right Frank! And many thanks.
I checked using Google searches for monk parakeet in europe
and australia with around 90 results. I've only looked at the pages
from the BBC and the USA Institute for Biological Invasions (IBI) and
skimmed the important document from the Bureau of Rural Sciences in
Canberra.
When in Barcelona I was busy looking at Gaudi buildings and the (soccer)
World Cup and rarely with binos. So I am completely happy that the birds must
have been Monk Parakeets/"Quaker Parrots" (Myiopsitta
monachus Boddaert 1783). (But I can't tick them because I didn't work
hard enough on i/d - grey faces !)
The BBC http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/3189209.stm says
(in 2003) "its mushrooming population in the city [Barcelona] is driving
the citizens to distraction". But from the text the
agricultural problem seems to be their attacks on tomatoes in neighbouring
rural areas - not mushrooms.
Seriously there is a Queensland government site which says the
monk parakeet is here (in cages we hope).
The unsuccessful attempts to stop them in the USA are mentioned in our
federal government paper www.affa.gov.au/corporate_docs/publications/
word/rural_science/lms/ferals/risk_assess_book.doc
"Someone" needs to read it.
Especially because it has data on releases apparently relating
to Streptopelia decaocto (the Eurasian Collared-dove) but no mention of the
Barbary Dove (S. 'risoria' =? S. roseogrisea).
I did not identify those Barcelona parakeets at the species level and
so may be wrong about our local new Streptopelias which I think are S.
'risoria'. (S. decaocto erupted in the USA as result of an import of birds
believed to be S 'risoria'). Do we have to capture them for the museums to
identify so the authorities can accept there is a serious issue ?
But whatever these escaped breeding feral pigeons and parakeets are:
STOP THEM NOW. "One year's seed equals seven years' weed".
Michael Norris
Bayside Friends of Native Wildlife
PS We went to get the new breeding pair in Brighton, Melb. but they had
gone and the nest was empty of all but plastic. Grey Butcherbirds - which have
only recently spread into our foreshore (because they are being fed so often?) -
were calling near the empty nest.
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