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Labour MP Stella Creasy has been ridiculed after mistaking one of London's famous parakeets for a lost pet parrot.
The MP for Walthamstow posted a video to Instagram yesterday afternoon with the caption: 'Have you lost a parrot in Walthamstow? Please share!' commenting that the bird was 'too big to be a parakeet'.
Her 231,000 followers were left bemused after she then filmed one of the recognisable local birds – with green feathers and a red beak – in Lloyd Park, north London.
There are around 30,000 to 50,000 ring-necked parakeets living in and around London, with hotspots in Richmond Park, Hampstead Heath and Regent's Park after self-sustaining colonies were established in the 1970s.
But the Labour MP was apparently unaware of the local wildlife, sharing a video of a lone parakeet while the song I'm Like A Bird by Nelly Furtado played in the background.
She grew concerned for the bird's owners, saying: 'Walthamstow - up there is a parrot. If you have lost a parrot, not a parakeet, there is a parrot on the loose in 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 - then it's in Lloyd Park right now!'
Her followers quickly pointed out her error, with many sharing images of common species and writing their own 'missing pet' appeals.
One user posted a picture of a deer in Richmond and described it as a 'lost cat with a branch stuck on its head', while another posted a picture of a hippo, describing it as a 'missing overweight pug'.
Another pointed out: 'That's a parakeet babe! They live here!!'
Others, however, left abusive comments underneath the video.
The MP responded with another video this evening, in which she criticised the backlash she had got for not recognising the parakeet and said it made her worried her 'our democracy and public life'.
She said: 'So yesterday I was with my kids in my local park and there was a green bird that seemed very tame because it allowed us to get very close to it. And it was quite big.
'Now, yes, I know what parakeets are, we've had parakeets flying around here for donkey's years...Frankly I always thought they were a smaller bird and a social bird, so you would always see them in pairs.
'So seeing a bird that seemed a bit bigger, on its own that seemed quite tame, I thought it might be somebody's parrot. And I thought, I'll do a quick video, see if I can help reunite it with its owner. Nothing more serious than that!'
She added: '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 people who know absolutely everything about anything and are always right can be, I don't think anyone would actually like the outcome because it actually wouldn't be very representative of the British public.
'I was just trying to do a nice thing by helping someone reunite with what I thought was a lost pet.'
The 49-year-old politician has been MP for Walthamstow since 2010, and is currently a backbencher.
Last February, the MP bizarrely claimed fictional bear Paddington would be denied UK citizenship under toughened Home Office rules.
She referred to the fictional talking bear as she lashed out at Government changes to immigration regulations.
The Labour backbencher told BBC Radio 4's Today that the action by the Home Office would 'deny' the marmalade-munching mammal from getting a passport.
She said: 'I was incredibly proud over the last couple of months to work with one of my neighbours, who is a young man who fled Syria, who is now making a life here.
'[He] has just got his degree, is contributing to our society, and has now got British citizenship.
'This process would deny that. Essentially it would deny, well, frankly, Paddington.
'Paddington did the same thing. He came via an irregular route, we gave him sanctuary but wouldn't give him a passport.'
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