This morning I managed at last to get a photo of one of the green parakeets which live in Richmond Park. They’re usually too quick for me.

The parakeets have been a feature of the park for some years, but still strike an exotic note with their vivid green plumage and their exuberant screeching. When flocks of them fly overhead, the effect can be quite startling. I’ve heard people explain their presence here in various ways – escaped from captivity, arrived on a barge on the Thames, let out of a container at Heathrow Airport by mistake – but I believe they may simply have changed their migration habits and alighted on the UK as an acceptable destination.

It’s a lovely day, and we’d gone to the park to see if anything was in bloom. Not much was, but the white magnolia trees in the Isabella Plantation were looking splendid, and there was a large herd of dappled deer browsing under the trees.