When I saw the subheading on a Country Diary about parakeets saying that the “new kings of the urban jungle divide opinion” (11 January), I believed I was about to read a welcome discussion about how best to cook these garish and intensely annoying avian hooligans. Was there a row between the traditionalists, who would roast them with a dash of brandy, and the more adventurous, who might favour spicy soups and stews?
Sadly, no. Your diarist, Lev Parakeet – er, I mean Lev Parikian – is a fence-sitter, according to the headline. Good, good, I thought – deep fried or grilled, Lev? But instead, he states that they bring a certain flashiness and “exuberance” to the parks and gardens of the capital. Perhaps he has a more interesting breed of original-thinking parakeets down his way in south London. Up here north of the Thames, we have the shouty, overconfident, screechy, stupidly loud and extrovert kind.
Every time you go to the park and hear a small bird tweet something along the lines of “I say, everyone, what shall we talk about today?” a shedload (official word) of daft parakeets will fly in and just start screaming witlessly.
If you want a vision of the future for our parks, imagine a parakeet shouting in a robin’s face – for ever.
Tim Bradford
Highbury, London
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