A photo showing scores of green parrots sitting on sacks of grain has been shared thousands of times in multiple posts on Facebook and Twitter alongside a claim it was taken during a nationwide coronavirus lockdown in India.
Below is a screenshot of the misleading post:, "The post’s Hindi-language caption translates to English as: “You wont get to see such a scenario other than in the current lockdown in India.”", "India has been in nationwide lockdown since March 25, 2020. It has since been extended several times\xa0and is now expected to remain in force until at least May 17, 2020, according to the governments latest\xa0announcement.", The photo has\xa0also been shared alongside a similar claim\xa0here and here on Facebook\xa0and here on Twitter., The claim, however,\xa0is false., A Google reverse image search found the photo was originally\xa0published here on Nature Forever, a blog about nature and conservation, on March 15, 2014., The blog post,\xa0written by a writer named\xa0Vivek Rathod,\xa0reads\xa0in part: “We set out next day from Yanam towards Amalapuram, Narsapur towards our friend’s village near Pallakollu… when we got to see this amazing picture of not 50 but nearly 100 or more parrots, perched up on rice bags, and feeding. It was a sight to behold.”, Below is a screenshot of the post:, Rathod told AFP\xa0the photo was taken years ago and is\xa0unrelated to the ongoing\xa0COVID-19 lockdown in India., “I took these photos in February 2014 and published on a blog a month later. These photos were taken near a town in southern Indian of Andhra Pradesh," he said by phone on May 7, 2020., Rathod also published the image\xa0here on his Facebook account in 2016., Below is a screenshot of the photo:, , , , Copyright © AFP 2017-2020.  All rights reserved.  Users can access and consult this website and use the share features available for personal, private, and non-commercial purposes.  Any other use, in particular any reproduction, communication to the public or distribution of the content of this website, in whole or in part, for any other purpose and/or by any other means, without a specific licence agreement signed with AFP, is strictly prohibited.  The subject matter depicted or included via links within the Fact Checking content is provided to the extent necessary for correct understanding of the verification of the information concerned.  AFP has not obtained any rights from the authors or copyright owners of this third party content and shall incur no liability in this regard.  AFP and its logo are registered trademarks.
This photo has circulated online since at least 2014 -- years before the COVID-19 pandemic | AFP Fact Check