19
PARAKEETS IN LOUGHTON
When I retired in August, 1974, and began to spend much
time in my garden in Spareleaze Hill Loughton, I was
puzzled by a large bird which occasionally flew swiftly
across the garden just below tree top height uttering a
shrill squawk. It was always silhouetted between me and
the light and I could get no idea of its colour. It had
a long tail and I thought it might be a hen kestrel. On
one occasion three flew over together.
During the summer of 1975 the same thing happened and at
last I was able to see a bird clearly, and it was a green
parakeet. From them until Christmas I saw the birds
frequently up to four at a time.
I did not see them again until late February when I saw
two and them I wrote to a local newspaper asking for
information about them and a gentleman telephoned me in
response (13/3/1976). He said that he was a gardener
employed on the Debden Housing Estate, and had seen the
birds ever since he took up his job two years before.
He understood that they had escaped from an aviary in
Sunset Avenue, Woodford and bird fanciers on the estate
put grain out for them. A pair had nested in a tree on
the estate the previous summer (1975) and he had watched
them feeding their nestlings. A lady also phoned and
said she had seen them taking nuts put out for tits in
a garden in Alderton Hill.
Throughout that year (1976) I saw them regularly 3. 4, or
5 at a time, and one Sunday in late summer a gloriously
warm evening wo flocks converged and settled in the now
of poplar trees behind my garden. When they dispersed
I counted nineteen fly away, while there were still one
or two left chattering in the trees.
One, two or even three birds could be seen right up to the
end of the year, but the only other sighting I made before
the next summer was two birds seen in February (1977).
In late July I occasionally heard them, but only actually