With Colombo still in lockdown I didn\’t expect to do any bird photography for a while more, but just a few days after we\’d arrived back home from our summer travels Rennie called from the kitchen to say that she could see some parrots clinging to scaffolding locating holes a long way up in the wall of the building opposite and I might want to grab a camera.

The window I needed to open was extremely stiff and I risked disturbing the birds, so as soon as I had a crack big enough to aim my 100-400 lens through I considered myself fortunate to have one parrot in my field of view.

Against the grey of the wall and buffeted under a foreboding sky by the onset of a squall, they brought life and vibrant colour to an otherwise monochrome scene.

Steve