If you live in the UK or northern Europe, do you ever see any exotic birds in your garden or general area ?

[IndigoSpritz]

I'm in Leeds and I'm told there are wild parakeets living in nearby Bradford. I've yet to see any where I am; in fact, I was surprised to learn they lived this far north. The most colourful bird I've seen (and heard) recently is a greenfinch - not many of those round here. And a greater spotted woodpecker in the country park nearby. I've heard the green woodpeckers call but never seen one. I would like to see a parakeet - I appreciate they're not native and potentially harmful.

I have egrets in my garden as we have a small pond full of frogs. At the moment the fields are being ploughed for a second crop and the storks are following the tractor. Still get a rush of delight when I see them, ditto nightingales nesting in the hedge.
The most exotic bird was the hoopoe. He walked past me as I was sitting in the garden writing my school reports. Have never seen one before or since.
We are in Southern France.

Lots of finches here in east mids. Robins, wrens and blue tits and blackbirds. Only one thrush this year which is unusual.

We occasionally get green woodpeckers and kingfishers down by the river. Lots of mallards and a pair of swans. Nothing exotic but they are all beautiful.

devilinme - I don't think it was an eagle in London? I think they are mainly in Scotland?

Parakeets ( had to stop feeding the garden birds for a while as the parakeets eat everything!)
Red kites are very common along the M4 and M40 corridors in Berks and Bucks.

In Kent we often see parakeets in the garden
Heron likes next doors defunct swimming pool
Cat has killed a yellowhammer before

IL's have a flock of parakeets in their willow tree.

My parents often get woodpeckers in their back garden.

Both in east London. The most exotic we get is a magpie and we are only about a mile away from the IL's.

We get little egrets round here, they are a recent arrival I think.

I also saw a spoonbill once, on mudflats in Chichester harbour.

I’ve seen a wild parakeet in Leeds Op, just the one mind, a green one, south east Leeds in a suburban area

There's an escaped parrot living on a common near me in North Yorkshire!

We own a property in Spain and we have loads of Hoopoes
Occasional chameleon too, which are awesome

We have parakeets here in Kent.
We also had a caracara living here happily. He had escaped from somewhere in Sussex and was oft seen running around in his weirdy way in fields locally. Not seen him for a while though.

And what sort of Eagle would that be in South London?

This will probably be vaguely outing as I frequently moan about the noise but we have a peacock that roams around between our garden and next door. He doesn't officially belong to anyone.
We also have some dark-green/almost black male pheasants (as opposed to the traditional red/brown colouring) who are lovely to look at. We also have a little family of quails who potter about too.

And by quail I actually mean partridge

East London

Garden regulars

Goldfinch
Woodpecker
Jay
Have twice had a peregrine in my garden

Plus usual suspects. Apparently there is a shortage of sparrows. Erm, no, they are all in my garden, I once counted 60 in my honeysuckle!

On my very local walks

Skylarks (couldn't believe it when I first heard them)
Meadow pipits
Egyptian geese
Heron
Little owl
Parakeets

Very jealous of the south London eagle!

And I once had a budgie in my garden! but I caught it and took it to the vet who said they knew of a budgie re homing centre.

When I was little I can clearly remember seeing a blue budgie in a tree in our back garden. Obviously it had escaped from somewhere, but Ive never forgotten it or how surreal it was seeing it.

Bloody hundreds of parakeets round here and have been for years. I hate them. They are SO LOUD.

SE London.

I volunteer in a local nature reserve which is across a river from the big park in Preston. One day we were checking for willow tits (there was one), but counted over 30 other different species - and that was before the summer migrants were around.

Some of the rspb/WWT reserves in the northwest have a huge range of species.

But no parakeets - yet!

We have two red legged partridges who have a love-fest under our oak tree every morning. Sometimes Mr Pheasant has a punch-up with his love rival. There are bluetits nesting in the robin box and who knows what is hiding in the barn owl box.

We are lucky, we have long tail tits, great tits, coal tits, woodpeckers, tree creepers, buzzards, a sparrowhawk, robins, sparrows, greenfinches, goldfinches, a barn owl, a tawny owl and a little owl who all call in frequently.

Red Kites everywhere here (Oxfordshire) I love watching them.
And the sodding heron that has used my pond as a fly through snack bar....

Oh, there are some parakeets in Lancashire

www.lancashiretelegraph.co.uk/news/17203509.parakeet-haven-pops-up-in-east-lancs/

I've seen mandarin ducks feral in Lancashire, and a pair of Carolina wood ducks on the Wharfe in Yorkshire. There is a colony of feral Emperor geese on Walney island, which surprised me when I first saw them.

Wiki has a page on non-native birds
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Listoffnon-nativebirdssofGreatt_Britain

When I worked on a farm in the south there was a Harris's hawk living near our poultry. They are not native to Europe, come from the Americas but are used in falconry. It would sit near the chickens (I presume it was eating the younger chickens, or perhaps any rodents the feed was attracting) and would let us get fairly close before it would fly away.

Oh and as above we also had some feral Mandarin ducks move in with our chickens.