To let my neighbours birds fly free tonight?

[Outnumbrd]

So I am the new person in the street, and my new neighbours have produced, a few nights ago, 2 I think budgies or some other littles tweeting birds in a tiny cage and put them in the back yard. I can hear them chirping and all I can think is that they are looking at the sky and asking me to set them free. So I have a plan, to send one of DC's , probably the smallest one to open the cage tonight. Then if he gets caught I can pretend I know nothing of it.

Someday
You really didn't like them did you

We have loads of parakeets around here. Noisy blighters.

My Mum is in SE London and the parakeets sit in the tree at the bottom of her garden .

One of my neighbours keeps Grey Francolins. They are really really noisy in the mornings. They wake up about 4am and start calling. They were annoying to begin with but I've got used to them now.

The parakeets have scared off the native birds in our area, such a shame. We used to have woodpeckers & lots of small birds in our London garden & the number has really gone down.

I love animals but I hate pets, and zoos.
Set everything free...

Give your head a wobble OP.

Notso
Yes, like the mink that were set free from fur farms and have decimated our water vole population.

and relax....

The trouble with setting animals free in countries where they don't naturally occur is that they die really quickly... or occasionally they do really well, but to the detriment of other wildlife.

The local cats will thank you. Do your neighbours also have cats?

We need to establish the bird species, though.

Have you seen them?

Notso my sofa surfing cat wouldn't thank you for that. He likes meals on tap. He was found and taken in by the cattery after they had watched him getting thinner as he doesn't hunt. They think he'd been abandoned. I'd rather he had a long comfortable life with me than a short distressing one in the wild.

'Set all the animals free' would have awful consequences! Exactly, the poor water voles. And red squirrels. I read an interview in Cosmo or some bollocks where a fashion blogger twat woman said she wanted to go to London zoo and release all the animals. I wonder how that would turn out?!

I think that unlike the ring necked parakeets, op will be seen no more. (Good, fecking idiot)

scaryteacher Your child could get done for trespass if caught, and you are encouraging that

Really? I hope that either that was tongue in cheek or you are not really a teacher. I am assuming that the OP's child is not old enough to have legal standing to be sued. Maybe I am wrong.

And for the record... Trespassers will be prosecuted? Drives me nuts. There is no such offence in England and Wales.

OP, I would suggest you buy some earplugs and a brain. Not necessarily in that order.

I don't like to see birds in cages. But no WAY would I release a domesticated bird into the wild. It's not just the bigger birds that kill them, they get mobbed and killed by flocks of smaller birds.

I hope you haven't already put the idea of "setting them free" to your DCs. They'd be lucky to last until morning.

Lweji I just tried to have a look to try to identify the species, but they've hung the cage high up in the tree and I can't quite see them. I myself have a big cat! Light hearted, yes, I like my new neighbours! I also used to see green paraqueets I think, wild in the middle of London (in a leafy square). I assumed they were escapees.

RubbishMantra, I've heard that a lot (about smaller birds killing escapee pets) but I don't think it happens, or at least not as a matter of course. Escapee budgies, for example, will team up with flocks of house sparrows and don't get any hassle from them (as shows). Have also seen plenty of pics/videos of escapee canaries happily feeding alongside wild finches in gardens.

What kind of big cat do you have, OP? I've always quite liked the idea of a pet leopard

Gerund my big cat is a lion! Big, pale ginger, very fluffy, enourmous paws!! Harmless and loveable, well don't think he's noticed next doors budgies in the tree yet.

I used to live in Namibia and we used to get love birds in the garden.

I had a budgie who had come from the wild I.e. Someone had found him as an escapee and as I'd just lost a budgie at the time I had an empty cage so he came to me. Was very tame, but it soon became apparent that he could escape through the tiniest gap in the bars of his cage, so it wasn't hard to see how he'd managed to end up in the wild....

I hate to see birds in tiny cages... so I don't keep them like that. But if you set them free frankly they'll die. Cold, starvation, predators, vehicles, fright... take your pick.

If someone set my chickens 'free' (they have a coop with loads more than the recommended space) I'd be utterly furious and upset because they would have killed them, we get foxes prowling in the day here.

Oh and you don't get to release them because THEY'RE NOT YOURS.

MrsDeVere "I kept him in my bra and gave him Rescue Remedy"!