The birds found in the lakes of Ixelles in Brussels are mostly common species: pigeons, ducks and gulls with fluffy plumage fly over the water and rest on the branches of trees. But someone else’s appearance is gradually changing the usual image.

Since the early 2000s, the green ringed parrot, with its characteristic bright plumage, has quadrupled in numbers.while the city seems divided: some argue that budgerigars are destructive, ripping holes in stone building facades and damaging telephone cables, but experts across Europe disagree on whether the birds should be treated as a problem or better left alone so that they can reproduce and live.