ON THE LIST - RING-NECKED PARAKEET

Tick as a parrot?

Following the recent article in Yorkshire Birding (Volume 20, pages 26 - 33) by David Hursthouse and Martin Blick covering Ring-necked Parakeets in Yorkshire, including their status and ‘tickability’, and an appeal for Yorkshire birders to let us have their views on the matter, a decision has now been taken to allow the species to be countable in The Yorkshire Listers League Table. The appeal for opinions met with no opposition to the species being deemed countable and the decision also falls in line with that of The Yorkshire Naturalist’s Union who state in the latest (2010) Yorkshire Bird Report ‘Due to increases in the feral British breeding population and to keep in line with BOURC’s decision to give it a C1E* categorisation, this species was moved into the main list in 2004. With small populations in neighbouring counties, it has now been decided to add this species to Yorkshire’s Category C list.’ We are aware that many, if not almost all participants of the Yorkshire Listers League will be able to add Ring-necked Parakeet to their tally, however, in the interests of accuracy we do need you to let us know this. As always, the ‘common sense rule’ must apply so please do not count any obvious escapee. For those already in possession of the electronic version of the Yorkshire Listers League List, Ring-necked Parakeet should be inserted between doves and cuckoos. Alternatively, as always, an updated version is available from yorkshirelists@blueyonder.co.uk which of course is also the address at where to let us know you have added the species.

Although the east coast has been pretty quiet recently it was action-stations inland when a 'ring-tailed' harrier which had been present at Firsby in South Yorkshire since around 10th September was sussed to be an adult female Pallid, that's the general opinion anyway. The bird chose a fairly small area of set-a-side to roost but despite this was somewhat erratic in its choice of bed, sometimes choosing to kip elsewhere. Despite this, with determination, most visitors were able to nail it with Saturday (October 6th) being its best day, however, even then it was not necessarily easy. At the time of writing it seems to have gone AWOL but hopefully may yet choose to return.

The Firsby harrier generally thought to be an adult female Pallid - Justin Carr

 Justin Carr

John Hewitt

This Yellow-browed Warbler was photographed at Ogden Water in late September - Brian Sumner