Mudcatters in West London will have been familiar with the flocks of ring-necked parakeets that have been plaguing gardens and soft- fruit growers, particularly in the Richmond on Thames area, for years. Obviously escapees from an aviary, or, local legend has it, from a Shepperton or Teddington film set after the filming of a Tarzan picture/African Queen/Sanders of the river (depending on whose urban myth you choose to believe!). When I workd in Egham, Surrey they had already spread there and into the surrounding bits of Windsor Great Park such as Virginia Water and Savill garden as well as Royal Holloway college grounds. We've always had the odd one over here (Ascot) but the last couple of weeks we've had a small flock or about half a dozen, they're certainly spreading, despite this recent cold winter.
Personally, I'm looking forwrad to the arrival or those wonderfully acrobatic Red Kites. They have been successfully spreading out from their reintroduction site in the Chilterns, are a familiar sight to travellers on the M40 round Stokenchurch, have spread north into Bucks (my late mother-in-law had seen them near Winslow)and south, certainly as far as Maidenhead and Bisham. One of our neighbours claims already to have seen one locally so we'll keep an eye out.

RtS