Dutch Garden Count confirms Ring-necked parakeets are urban

In temperate zones Ring-necked parakeets re mostly resricted to cities. The Society for the protection of birds (Vogelbescherming) in The Netherlands today published some results of their decade of annual garden counts. It confirms that Ring-necked parakeets are true inner-city birds.

This exotic species makes the top 10 in both Amsterdam and The Hague. It is an upcoming species in many other cities and it will soon make the top 10 in Leiden and Zoetermeer.

These birds are spreading but their distribution is a typical urban phenomenon. In the 2012 edition of the garden count the Ring-necked parakeet featured number 6 in downtown Amsterdam. If we look at the city as a whole then the parakeet is still at number 7. But if we include the surrounding countryside like Marken then the species rapidly drops out of the Top 10 and reappears at number 23. In this sense the parakeets are very similar to urban pigeons.

These numbers show that 4 decades after these birds have become established their population still heavily depends on people and the food they provide. Their distribution even begs to question if these birds can truly be termed invasive since they hardly occur in any natural habitat typical for this country.