The number of wild parrots living in England is rising at 30% per year, says an Oxford University research project.

Parks and gardens in the leafy London suburbs have been adopted as a preferred habitat by birds that are native to southern Asia.

Some reports suggest there could now be 20,000 wild parrots, including parakeets, living in England, with the largest concentration around London and the South East.

The findings, from Oxford University's Edward Grey Institute of Field Ornithology, give a glimpse of exotic creatures in unlikely places.

The population boom has been put down to a series of mild winters, a lack of natural predators, food being available from humans and that there are now enough parrots for a wider range of breeding partners.

In particular, they have been observed in growing numbers in the outer suburbs and the Home Counties, with trees in parkland and sports grounds becoming their homes.

Hotspots

• A rugby club in Esher has seen populations of parrots grow from 800 to 2,500 in just three years. Now researchers estimate there might be 3,000 living there.
• Lewisham crematorium has become home for a flock of Alexandrine parakeets.
• Orange-winged parakeets, native to the Amazon, have now set up home in Weybridge.
• Borehamwood is home to a colony of South American monk parakeets.
• A number of blue-crowned parakeets have been observed in Bromley.