The sightings of green parrots in and around the University of Sussex have now been identified as wild parrots regularily breeding in the area. They are managing to survive the cold winters by living off food put out in local gardens.

Juliej@ukonline.co.uk

I am not a twitcher but I saw three green parrots in my garden in Watford, north west of London on 20th November and was pleased to see from your posting that my eyes were not deceiving me! actually I saw them last year in exactly the same tree! they were preening, flying around and carrying twigs, they stayed for about 15 minutes. have you heard of any others up this way?

CGCates Watford

I'm not really an expert on the Burgess Hill area, as we are a Central London group. However, the parrots you are seeing are almost certainly ring-necked parakeets, which started as escapes some time back but now breed very successfully in the wild, and survive the southern English winters. We get them in various parts of London, and there is at least one place in Surrey where they gather in huge quantities to roost overnight.

Janja (RSPB)

PARAKEETS in Sussex are a very scarce introduced breeding resident. I have no doubt they were either introduced locally or have spread from the Surrey/Greater London populations which have been established for many years (they first appeared in Britain in 1969), particulalry around the Virginia water/Runnymede areas. There is a small feral population in Brighton of 1-3 prs which reached a total of 11 in 1992. They have also been observed at various other scattered locations in the county so a possible sighting near Burgess Hill is not without some precedent. However, I would be most grateful for details of this sighting: numbers, dates, location (with 6-fig OS map ref. if possible), behaviour. These data would be most useful for the county database and publication in the annual report.

janthobson@aol.com.

Have you seen any? Let us know webmaster@burgesshill.net