Tokyo's Wild Parakeets Are Reportedly Winning a Turf War With the Crows

What's going on

A Tokyo resident posted a photo of a flock of bright green parakeets in their neighborhood and asked, a little puzzled, whether this was normal for Tokyo. It more or less is. The birds are rose-ringed parakeets, native to South Asia and parts of Africa. They were imported into Japan in large numbers during a pet boom in the late 1960s and '70s, and escapees have been living and breeding in and around the city ever since. Estimates now put the population at around 3,000.

Their main rivals are the crows. Tokyo's streets belong to large-billed crows, big and clever birds famous for raiding garbage, and they are not usually the ones who back down. So when one reply mentioned that the parakeets have been fighting them for territory, flock against flock, and slowly gaining ground, the conversation turned into amateur war reporting, with side trips into bird taxonomy and at least one power outage.

Comments

There’s suddenly a ton of parakeets in my neighborhood. Is this normal in Tokyo?

なんか近所にインコが大量発生してるんですが、東京では普通なんですか？

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Apparently they’re fighting turf wars with the crows, flock vs flock. The crows are losing ground, and the parakeets are slowly spreading out.

群れ同士でカラスと縄張り争いのバトルをしているそうです。カラスが押されているらしくインコが徐々に分布を広げてます。

Wait, there’s a war going on (゜д゜)!?

なんか勃発してる(゜д゜)！？

Sounds like a color gang turf war

カラーギャングの抗争みたい

They can actually beat crows?

カラスに勝てるんだ

How do they even win…

どうやって勝つんだ…

Getting surrounded by a bunch of nimble little guys with sharp beaks would be rough…

小回り利くクチバシの鋭い連中に囲まれたらたまらんからね…

Is THE crow really gonna lose to something like this yelling “G’MORNIN’!!!” at it?

あのカラスがこんなのに「ｵﾊﾖ!!!」とか言われて負けんのかな

Feral rose-ringed parakeets have some of the best physical ability and attack power of any bird, and they’re tough enough to hold their own against crows. In a straight one-on-one slugfest the bigger crow has the edge, but the parakeets fight back, and win, with their own “tactics” and “weapons.”

野生化しているワカケホンセイインコは、鳥類の中でもトップクラスの身体能力と攻撃力を持っており、カラスに負けない強さを持っています。 1対1の単純な殴り合いでは体格の大きいカラスが有利ですが、インコたちは独自の「戦術」と「武器」でカラスに対抗し、勝っています。

Even crows have a caste system based on beak size. It’s basically large-billed crows and then everyone else. The carrion crows only get the scraps after the large-billed ones are done eating. So for these guys, with beaks that are decent but nowhere near that size, to be fighting them as equals… they must be some serious fighters.

カラスのカーストでもハシブトとそれ以外というぐらい、クチバシのサイズで種の上下関係あって、ハシブトの食べた後にハシボソがやっと残りカスをもらうというようなもので、そこで立派とはいえどもそれほどのクチバシでない子達が対等にバトってるってのはよっぽどのファイターですな。

One on one, the crow is way more advanced, but feral parakeets are strong as a group creature. Maybe it’s like how if you drop one human into the jungle and one monkey into the jungle, the human’s the one in trouble?

単一個体としての高度さとしてはカラスが圧勝だけど、野生化したインコは群体を持つ生物として強いからなぁ人間1人ジャングルに放り込むのと猿をジャングルに放り込んだ場合人間の方が脆弱になるみたいな話なのかな

Side note: apparently falcons aren’t related to eagles and hawks. They’re closer to parrots. Falcons and big parrots have similar wing shapes, and both can grab things with their feet and bring them to their mouths. Parrots also fly better than crows, and they’re smart. No telling how this war is going to play out.

余談ですがハヤブサはワシ・タカの仲間でははなくインコに近いらしいですね。ハヤブサと大型インコの翼の形は似てますし足でモノを掴んで口に運べるというのも。インコはカラスと比べると飛翔能力が優れるしアタマもいい。将来の抗争の行方には予測が付きません。

In Tokyo, rose-ringed parakeets (technically a subspecies) have gone feral and are established and breeding. They were imported in bulk from India, Sri Lanka and elsewhere during the pet boom of the late ’60s and ’70s. They’re said to descend from birds that got loose in shipping accidents (around 1969, a container broke open in Tokyo and about 100 birds escaped), and over 50-plus years they’ve adapted to city life.

東京では、ワカケホンセイインコ（ホンセイインコの亜種、英名Rose-ringed Parakeet）が野生化して定着・繁殖している。 1960年代後半〜1970年代のペットブームでインド・スリランカなどから大量に輸入され、輸送中の事故（1969年頃に東京都内でコンテナが壊れて約100羽が逃げ出した）のものが元と言われているが、50年以上かけて都市環境に順応した。

They say there are over 3,000 in Tokyo alone. There aren’t many big birds of prey in central Tokyo to hunt them, so it must be paradise 😅 Though there’s apparently the crow war to deal with 💦

東京だけで3000羽超えると言われてますね。天敵の大型猛禽類が都心に少ないですから、楽園なんでしょうね😅 カラスとの抗争はありそうですが💦

Those are rose-ringed parakeets. Imported as pets, went feral, now an established invasive species. I see them now and then around Tokyo and Kanagawa too. Their call is really distinctive, so you know right away when you run into them. They’re a medium-sized parakeet, so up close they’re actually pretty big. (Kanagawa is the prefecture just south of Tokyo, home to Yokohama.)

ペットとして輸入されて野生化し、外来種として定着しているワカケホンセイインコですね私も東京～神奈川でたまに見るんですが、声が特徴的なので遭遇するとすぐに分かります。中型インコなので近くで見ると結構デカい

If this keeps up, could they pass 10,000!? Parakeets around Tokyo: 1983 survey, about 514. Late 2010s, around 1,500. 2024 survey, 3,000+. Apparently they’re multiplying the same way in London, already over 30,000 there. Too many of them could mean damage to fruit and other crops, so people are being asked not to feed them

このまま増えれば1万羽超える！？東京周辺のインコの数 1983年の調査：約514羽 2010年代後半：1,500羽前後 2024年の調査：3,000羽超ロンドンでも同じように増えててすでに3万羽超えてるらしい増えすぎると果物とかの農作物に被害でるかもだからエサやりは控えましょうって

These parakeets want to chew on the insulators on utility poles. There was an industry article about how they switched pole insulators to plastic to deal with salt damage, and then the feral parakeets, who LOVE chewing plastic, went to town on them. Result: yakitori and power outages. Ceramic insulators from the great NGK Insulators are the way to go, No. 1 in global market share! (Yakitori is grilled chicken on skewers. NGK Insulators is a Japanese maker of ceramic insulators.)

このインコ達は、電柱のガイシをかじりたいんです。業界記事で「塩害対策で電柱の碍子をプラスチック化したらプラかじり大好きな野生インコがプラ碍子をかじりまくって焼き鳥＆停電発生して大変」というのがありました。やっぱ碍子は日本碍子様の陶器性碍子ですよ世界シェアNo.1 ！

Hahaha! That’s exactly the one. Why did a parakeet native to Africa explode in Japan, and would the resin insulators have worked out without them? So many questions. (The species is native to parts of both Africa and South Asia.)

わはは！まさにこれです。なぜ日本にアフリカ原産のインコが大発生したのか、それがなかったら樹脂碍子は成功だったのか、色々気になるところです。

Computer bugs are named after an insect that fried a machine, so a burnout caused by birds should be called a “burg,” right?

コンピュータのバグが虫による焼損なので、バード達による焼損は「バーグ」ですよね

バグバーグ

“Bug” → “bird-bug.” “Bug” is バグ (bagu) and “bird” is バード (bādo). Stretch the vowel in bagu the way bādo does and you get バーグ (bāgu).

My take

Natural selection doesn't take requests from people, I know. Still, it's quite a jolt when scenery you know by heart quietly changes its cast.

#Surprising #Animals

Source & translation note

Comments loosely translated for tone. Reactions collected from Togetter and X threads.

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