Freaky fauna (or animals what shouldn't be here)

Now, we're as much fans of animals in funny places as the next person. But, seriously, parrots in Rome? There are loads of these noisy little green chaps in Rome now. We've seen them in Villa Borghese, on the Janiculum and in Pigneto of all places, the Bohemian pests.


Apparently, they're also in London now. They'll be everywhere soon. In fact, this reminds me of when a parrot landed in a tree outside Rachel's office in Reading and she phoned Facilities to tell them that it looked 'sad' - they phoned the RSPB, who said there was nothing to be done. Shame on them.

But better than parrots: beavers! Beavers, on the Tiber. We spotted these cheeky little rodents paddling around near the Ponte Vittorio Emanuele II a couple of years ago and we've been keeping our eyes peeled ever since.



No idea where they came from - maybe washed down river in the flood waters - but I hope they come back.

(This is the bit when some random specialist in Italian wildlife pipes up to tell us that beavers are in fact very common in Italy, like pigeons, or worse, that these are in fact just big rats... We'd never live it down...)

Amendment: Oh!! Now we know what they are! They are coypu! Basically, beavers but not quite. In Italian they are called 'castorino', little beavers. Apparently they escaped from fur farms and were also introduced into parts of Italy in the early 20th century. Phew - now we can all sleep sounder at night.