Colourful, Charismatic & Competitive

Rose-ringed Parakeets in South Africa

- Anthony (Ticky) Forbes & Nicolette Forbes

We know they are here, but where did they come from? Where else do they occur? What are they doing here and what does the future hold for this species in South Africa?

Which bird species are we talking about? The answer is a very obvious, colourful and noisy bird – the Rose-ringed Parakeet Psittacula krameri. It’s a species that behaves differently from virtually any other in a group in which many members have suffered and gone extinct at the hand of man. The species is now well established in South Africa, although it is still concentrated in two major urban areas, Durban and Johannesburg/Pretoria.

According to the Handbook of Birds of the World, the species was described from Senegal in 1869 as Psittacus krameri by Scopoli and named for Wilhelm Kramer, an Austrian zoologist. Since then, four subspecies have been recognised, two of which occur in Africa in a band south of the Sahara, from Mauritania and Senegal in the west to Eritrea and Djibouti in the east. The other two subspecies are found from Afghanistan to southern China, and in peninsular India and Sri Lanka. These areas cover a wide variety of habitats and climatic conditions, which is unusual as most bird species have fairly specific habitat requirements and preferences.

Having frequently encountered Rose-ringed Parakeets in the Durban area and knowing their African distribution, we naturally assumed that they would occur in relatively warm, subtropical conditions. It was therefore a surprise when we heard and saw them flying over the Royal Horticultural Society’s Chelsea Flower Show in London on what was – to Durbanites – a bitterly cold day.