Hi, >> during the summer I saw a couple of exotic birds on a pavement in >> Southwark. When I approached them they flew up a tree where they >> remained for quite a long time before flying out of sight. They were >> not parrots, but had (iirc) blue, red, green and yellow plumage.
> European Bee eater? > http://www.birdfoto.fsnet.co.uk/beeeater/beeeater.html > We even had a pair nesting here last year. Nope. The ones I saw were more crow-like, in size and shape. The colour was more cartoonish (probably not a good biological term), and I was particularly struck by how vivid the green was. >> The sparrow population in England has collapsed in recent years. >> Perhaps they all evolved into something exotic and we never noticed. > I suspect the answer is rather more prosaic...... my approach to conspiracy theories, alien abductions and so on has always been that the dullest and most boring explanation is likely to be the one that's true, so I guess I have to agree with you. The most surprising exotic creature I've seen in the UK was a wild penguin. Last year on Chesil Beach in Dorset I saw a bird swimming very quickly through the waves, chasing a fish. From my vast experience of penguins in S. Africa I identified it immediately. I was rather taken aback to see one so far north, so when I got home I went through my Observer Book of Birds (or whatever), and learned that it was in fact a guillemot, which is not at all exotic (although I've never seen one in London, whereas I have seen penguins). Still, those things are pretty good examples of convergent evolution. -- Cheers, Bob
