SerpApi.Org
A Labour MP has been mocked online for mistaking one of the London’s wild green parakeets for a lost pet parrot.
Stella Creasy, who represents Walthamstow, east London, ruffled feathers on social media by sharing a video of a parakeet in a local park, hoping to reunite it with its owner.
She believed the bird was a pet “on the loose” because it was “too big” to be a parakeet and said she hoped it would be reunited with its owner.
Ms Creasy’s video backfired, when she was mocked mercilessly in a series of parody posts. The response prompted her to issue a second video about the intolerance of social media and the strain on those in public life.
In a selfie video, which she uploaded on Tuesday with “I’m Like a Bird” by Nelly Furtado as background music, Ms Creasy pointed to a green bird above a tree.
She said: “Up there is a parrot. If you have lost a parrot, not a parakeet, there is a parrot on the loose in Lloyd Park right now. It’s about half four and we’re in the kind of island section of Lloyd Park.
“I’ll try and post some pictures up of it, but if you’ve lost an actual parrot, because it’s too big to be a parakeet, it’s in Lloyd Park right now.”
In the now-deleted post, she wrote: “Walthamstow has anyone lost a parrot? There’s one in Lloyd Park right now! Please share to help reunite it with its owner!”
Parakeets have been a common sight in the capital’s parks and gardens for decades, with thousands flying around London, prompting urban myths about how the exotic-looking birds came to be a common sight.
One theory was that the population flourished after Jimi Hendrix released birds in Carnaby Street in the 1960s. According to another myth, the birds thrived after being set free from the set of The African Queen which was filmed in Worton Hall Studios in West London in 1951.
Bombarded with social media mockery
Social media users parodied Ms Creasy’s post. One shared a photograph of a fox, asking if the people of Stockwell, south London, had “lost a dog”.
Another shared a photograph of a stag, saying: “Lost cat in Richmond Park! And it has a tree branch stuck on its head, poor thing. Please share.” In another post, a social media user shared a photograph of a robin, asking if anyone had “lost their pet Toucan”.
Annunziata Rees-Mogg, a former Brexit Party MEP, said that although she did not live in London, she “like most people know the difference between a parrot and a parakeet”.
After being bombarded with social media mockery, Ms Creasy posted a second video on Wednesday.
She said: “Now yes, I know what parakeets are. We’ve had parakeets flying around Walthamstow for donkey’s years especially on the Walthamstow Marshes,” she said.
She explained she thought the bird was a pet parrot, because it seemed “very tame”, was “quite big” and was on its own, while parakeets were usually in pairs.
She said: “Now it turns out it probably was a parakeet. I can’t believe that’s actually news, but apparently so.
“If we make public life an environment where only those who know absolutely everything about anything and are always right ... well I don’t think any of us would like the outcome.”
Ms Creasy said she would not “lose any sleep” over mistaking a wild parakeet for a pet parrot and said it was a “learning opportunity”, but she warned the mockery and abuse she received over trying to do “a nice thing” was troubling.
She said: “I will worry about our democracy and our public life if we make it impossible for normal people who don’t know everything about everything to be part of it and that’s the real story here.”
