Send message to Author

Paper short abstract

This paper explores the lives of and the living with two parakeet species in Amsterdam’s Oosterpark, known locally as “green parrots.” Blending observations of birds and people, it examines how urban myths, personal observations, and sometimes facts shape relations with nature in the city.

Paper long abstract

Over 5,000 ring-necked and Alexandrine parakeets reside in Amsterdam’s Oosterpark, locally known for their large numbers and shrieking calls. Locally referred to as “green parrots,” they are often perceived as invasive, hostile to native birds and a threat for agriculture. Their origin stories are equally mythologized, ranging from epic tales of Jimi Hendrix, the 17th century ships to a mysterious bird breeder and an attic in a canal house. In urban settings, truth and myth often live side by side.

The research project Thinking with Birds investigated how urban history can include natural histories, with the parakeets of the Oosterpark as one of the case studies. Through field workshops, lectures, and collaborations with birders, ‘bird ladies,’ and local residents, the project gathered a wide array of narratives. These stories revealed both the diversity of public perceptions as well as exoticising narratives.

This paper presents those narratives and explores how different ways of knowing, embodied and theoretical, local and global, personal and public, can blend when it comes to our imagined relation with these birds. The parakeets may not invite direct conversation, but they spark imagination, frustration, and the reproduction of shared urban myths - revealing how human and nonhuman lives intertwine in public spaces.

Ultimately, the paper suggests that “thinking with birds” can connect various forms of knowledge and use myth not as falsehood, but as a catalyst for curiosity, which is especially needed when it comes to a more critical re-imagining of our relationship with nature.