The rose-ringed parakeet (Psittacula krameri), also known as the ring-necked parakeet, is a medium-sized parrot in the genus Psittacula, of the family Psittaculidae. It has a disjunct native range in tropical northern Africa and the Indian subcontinent, and is now introduced into many other parts of the world where feral populations have established themselves having been bred for the exotic pet trade and then escaped.

The species is listed as least concern by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) because its population appears to be increasing, but its popularity as a pet and unpopularity with farmers have reduced its numbers in some parts of its native range. They can live in a variety of climates outside their native range, and are able to survive low winter temperatures in northern Europe.

Taxonomy

Four subspecies are recognised, with two in Africa and two in Asia. While they differ little in plumage, genetic evidence from studies in 2004, and 2016–2019, suggest they should probably be treated in two separate species, as the African and Asian populations are paraphyletic with respect to the Echo parakeet P. eques of Mauritius and (formerly) Réunion; the Asian populations are more closely related to P. eques than they are to African P. krameri. The subspecies differ in size, with the Asian birds being larger, and larger-billed, than the African; and most usefully for identification, in the pattern and tone of red and black on the bill.

{| class="wikitable"

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! Male !! Female !! Scientific name !! English name !! Distribution !! Bill pattern

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|120px ||120px || P. k. krameri || African rose-ringed parakeet || West Africa in Guinea, Senegal, and southern Mauritania, east to western Uganda and southern Sudan, north to Egypt. || Upper mandible dark red with black tip; lower black with some red at the base

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| || || P. k. parvirostris || Abyssinian rose-ringed parakeet || Northwestern Somalia, west across northern Ethiopia to Sennar state, Sudan || Upper mandible dark red with limited black tip; lower all-black

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|120px ||120px || P. k. borealis || Boreal rose-ringed parakeet || Northern Indian subcontinent north of 20°N, in Pakistan, northern India, Nepal, Bangladesh and northern and central Burma || Upper mandible bright red with no black; lower all-red or with some black markings

|-

|120px ||120px || P. k. manillensis || Indian rose-ringed parakeet || Southern India south of 20°N,

Description

Rose-ringed parakeets are in length, including the tail feathers, a large portion of their total length. The folded wing length (outer wing joint to wing tip) is in African birds, and in Asian birds, and the tail length is in African birds, and in Asian birds; within Asian birds, P. k. borealis has longer tails than P. k. manillensis, and in all, males have longer tails than females. and the female, and immature birds of both sexes, either show no neck rings, or display shadow-like pale to dark grey neck rings. Both sexes have a distinctive green colour in the wild with a red beak and blue tail.

Ecology and behaviour

Diet

In the wild, rose-ringed parakeets usually feed on buds, nectar, fruit, vegetables, nuts, berries, seeds, grains, and insects. Wild flocks also fly several miles to forage in farmlands and orchards, causing extensive damage. Feral parakeets will regularly visit gardens and other locations near human habitation, taking food from bird feeders.

In India, they feed on cereal grains, and during winter also on pigeon peas. In Egypt during the spring, they feed on mulberry, and in summer they feed on dates and nest inside palm trees and eat from sunflower and corn fields.

In captivity, rose-ringed parakeets will take a large variety of food and can be fed on a number of fruit, vegetables, pellets, seeds, and even small amounts of cooked meat for protein. Oils, salts, chocolate, alcohol, and other preservatives should be avoided.

Reproduction

In northwestern India, Indian rose-ringed parakeets form pairs from September to December. They do not have life partners, and often breed with another partner during the following breeding season. During this cold season, they select and defend nest sites, thus avoiding competition for sites with other birds. Feeding on winter pea crops provides the female with nutrients necessary for egg production. From April to June, they care for their young. Fledglings are ready to leave the nest before monsoon. Indian ring-necked parakeet supplements that contain calcium carbonate, vitamin D3, and other minerals and vitamins that support calcium absorption are often used by parakeet owners and breeders to prevent egg-laying problems and brittle bones.

Aviculture

thumb|Mimicry (talking)

Rose-ringed parakeets are popular as pets and they have a long history in aviculture. The ancient Greeks kept the Indian subspecies P. krameri manillensis, and the ancient Romans kept the African subspecies P. krameri krameri. Captive bred birds have multiple colour mutations which include turquoise, cinnamon, olive, white, blue, violet, grey and yellow. Colour mutations of the Indian rose-ringed parakeet subspecies have become widely available in recent years. A blue colour morph mutation of the rose-ringed parakeet is also commonly kept in aviculture. Birds that display this mutation have solid light blue feathers instead of green.

Mimicry

Both males and females have the ability to mimic human speech. First, the bird listens to its surroundings, and then it copies the voice of the human speaker. Some people hand-raise rose-ringed parakeet chicks for this purpose. Such parakeets then become quite tame and receptive to learning. They have extremely clear speech and are one of the best talking parrots.

Feral birds

thumb|Rose-ringed parakeets feeding on stored grain

thumb|Rose-ringed parakeet feeding on [[Helianthus|sunflowers, Kolkata, India]]

thumb|Feral rose-ringed parakeet in [[Tokyo, Japan]]

A popular pet, the rose-ringed parakeet has escaped or been released in a wide range of cities around the world, giving it an environment with few predators, and where their preferred diet of seeds, nuts, fruit, and berries is available from suburban gardens and bird feeders. mostly in Ankara, İzmir, Istanbul (concentrated in parks), Tunis, Tripoli and Tehran (concentrated in the north side of the city). It is also found throughout Lebanon, Israel, Iran, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Qatar, and Oman. A small number of escaped birds are present in Australia. and/or (to a lesser extent) krameri, along with some inter-specific hybrids with naturalised Psittacula eupatria (the Alexandrine parakeet).

Where introduced, rose-ringed parakeets may affect native biodiversity and human economy and wellness.

Europe

Its adaptations to cold winters in the Himalayan foothills allow it to easily withstand European winter conditions.

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Rose-ringed parakeets are seen as a direct threat to populations of Europe's largest bat, the greater noctule, as parakeets compete with the bats for nesting sites, and will attack and kill adults before colonising their habitat.

Great Britain

There is a burgeoning population of feral parakeets in Great Britain which is centred on suburban London and the Home Counties of South-East England. Parakeet numbers have been highest in the south-west of London, although the population has since spread rapidly, and large flocks of birds can be observed in places such as Crystal Palace Park, Battersea Park, Buckhurst Hill, Richmond Park, Wimbledon Common, Greenwich Park, and Hampstead Heath, as well as Surrey and Berkshire. Feral parakeets have also been observed in Abbey Wood, Bostall Heath, Bostall Woods and Plumstead Common. The winter of 2006 had three separate roosts of about 6000 birds around London. They have also established themselves in Kensington Gardens, Hyde Park, and Regent's Park. A smaller population occurs in Kent, around Margate, Broadstairs, Ramsgate and Sandwich. There is also an established population to the North East of London in Essex at Loughton and Theydon Bois by Epping Forest. Elsewhere in Britain, smaller feral populations have become established from time to time throughout the Midlands, Northern England, and even as far north as Glasgow and Edinburgh. It has been suggested that feral parrots could endanger populations of native British birds, and that the rose-ringed parakeet should be culled as a result, although this is not currently recommended by conservation organisations.

In the United Kingdom and especially within London, parakeets face predation by native birds of prey and owls, including the peregrine falcon (Falco peregrinus), Eurasian hobby (F. subbuteo) and tawny owl (Strix aluco).

Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg

In the Netherlands, the feral population in the four largest urban areas (Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Utrecht and The Hague) was estimated at 20,000 birds in 2021, double the number of birds estimated in 2010. There also exists a feral population in Belgium, with as many as 5,000 pairs estimated in Brussels. These originate from an original population that was set free in 1974 by the owner of the Meli Zoo and Attraction Park near the Atomium who wanted to make Brussels more colourful.

Germany

In Germany, these birds are found along the Rhine<!-- Charadrius 19:45 --> in all major urban areas such as Bonn, Cologne (about 3,000&nbsp;birds in 2014), Düsseldorf (about 800&nbsp;birds), Frankenthal, Heidelberg, Ladenburg, Ludwigshafen, Mainz, Mannheim, Speyer, Wiesbaden, Worms and Zweibrücken.

France

Large populations are found in France especially in and around Paris, but also in other places such as in and around Antibes.

Italy

In Italy, Rome is notable for parakeet populations in the gardens of the Palatine Hill, the trees of Trastevere and Janiculum and at Villa Borghese. There are also colonies in Orto Botanico di Palermo in Palermo and in the city of Genoa.

Spain

In Spain there are populations in Barcelona.

Portugal

There are breeding population in Lisbon

Turkey

In Turkey, there are populations in Istanbul over 1,000 parakeets and also in İzmir, Manisa, Muğla, Balıkesir, Ankara, Antalya totally over 5,000.

Ukraine

There is a small breeding population (26 birds reported in 2024) in Chernivtsi. Single sightings have been reported in Kyiv, Lviv, and Kharkiv.

Palestine and Israel

thumb|Feral rose-ringed parakeets on the roof of The Russian Church of St. Peter, [[Tel Aviv, Israel]]

In the Palestine-Israel region, the main invasive population may be the nominate subspecies. The first rose-ringed parakeets were brought to Israel from Iran as pets in the 1960s. Some have escaped and feral populations started to appear in the 1980s. As of 2025 it is the fifth most common bird in Israel.

Japan

There is a feral population of the birds in Japan. In the 1960s many Japanese people became pet owners for the first time and the parakeet was widely imported as a pet. Some escaped or were released and formed populations around the country. By the 1980s groups could be found in Tokyo, Osaka, Nagoya, Niigata and Kyushu. Some groups since died out, but as of 2009 there was a large population residing at the Tokyo Institute of Technology's main campus at Ookayama, along with small groups in Maebashi and Chiba city.

New Zealand

Feral rose-ringed parakeets have sporadically been observed around New Zealand, and are treated as a major potential threat to the country's native bird populations due to their potential to outcompete native parakeet species, and introduce diseases.

thumb|Rose-ringed parakeet (female) in New Delhi

Aggression toward other animals

In the María Luisa Park in Seville, the population of the greater noctule bat declined sharply when the population of rose-ringed parakeets increased 20-fold. The rose-ringed parakeets attacked the greater noctule at tree cavities and occupied most of the cavities previously used by the bats. The attacks by the rose-ringed parakeets often led to the death of the greater noctule. In 14 years, the number of tree cavities occupied by the greater noctule decreased by 81%. A spatial analysis of tree cavity use showed that the greater noctule tried to avoid cavities near parakeets. Several authors have reported negative behaviour of ring-necked parakeets near their nest sites; lethal attacks on a Leisler's bat (Nyctalus leisleri) in Italy (Menchetti et al. 2014), on black rats (Rattus rattus) in Spain (Hernández-Brito et al. 2014b) and on several competitor and predator species in Spain (Hernández-Brito et al. 2014a). In the Paris area in France, an attack by a ring-necked parakeet on an adult red squirrel (Sciurus vulgaris) has been reported (Clergeau et al. 2009).

<gallery widths="200px" heights="160px">

Psittacula krameri MHNT.ZOO.2010.11.148.32.jpg|Eggs of Psittacula krameri—MHNT

Babies of Rose-Ringed Parakeet in hollow trunk.JPG|Chicks in tree hole

Rose-ringed Parakeet (Psittacula krameri) -blue mutation on perch.jpg|A blue colour morph mutation parakeet kept as a pet

Psittacula krameri -colour mutations -pets-8a.jpg|Pet rose-ringed parakeets are available in a wide variety of colours, including yellow, green, white, lavender and cyan.

</gallery>

References

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  • Species text—The Atlas of Southern African Birds
  • Photos — Oriental Bird Images
  • Videos, photos and sounds—Internet Bird Collection