Indigo Macaw

Identification

Lear's macaw is 70–75 cm (27+1⁄2–29+1⁄2 in) long and weighs around 950 g (2 lb 2 oz).<p>The body, tail, and wings are dark metallic blue with a faint, often barely visible, tinge of green, and the head is a slightly paler shade. It has an area of pale-yellow skin adjacent to the base of its beak, and orange-yellow eye rings. It has a large, blackish beak and dark grey feet.<p>Lear's macaw is similar to the larger hyacinth macaw and the slightly smaller glaucous macaw. The hyacinth macaw can be distinguished by its darker plumage, lack of greenish tinge, and a differently shaped patch of yellow skin adjacent to the base of the bill. The glaucous macaw is paler and has a more greyish head.

Taxonomy

Lear's macaw was named after the famous poet, Edward Lear, who was also an accomplished artist. In his teens in the early 1830s, Lear published a book of drawings and paintings of live parrots in zoos and collections, Illustrations of the Family of Psittacidae, or Parrots. One of his paintings in his book strongly resembles this species, and although at the time he titled the work as 'hyacinth macaw' — a larger, darker species with a differently shaped patch of yellow skin adjacent to the base of the bill, which it closely resembles — not everyone agreed, and a quarter century later, in 1856, the illustration was given a species description by the French ornithologist and nephew of Emperor Napoleon, Prince Charles Lucien Bonaparte, who chose to commemorate the poet in the specific name. Most authorities, however, were unconvinced of the distinctness of the new taxon. The rarely seen bird was not considered a distinct species until 1978, when German-born, Brazilian-naturalised ornithologist Helmut Sick finally located the wild population.

Scientific name

Anodorhynchus leari

Authority

Bonaparte, 1856

Order

Psittaciformes

Family

Psittacidae

Genus

Anodorhynchus

Range and habitat

For a century and a half after it had been described, the species was only known from sporadic occurrences in the bird trade, and the whereabouts of the wild population was unknown. A wild population was eventually discovered in 1978 by ornithologist Helmut Sick in Bahia in the interior northeast of Brazil. Until this discovery the birds were thought to be simply a variant form of the closely related hyacinth macaw.<p>Lear's macaw roosts on sandstone cliffs, which were formed by streams cutting through outcrops. It is known from two colonies at locations known as Toca Velha and Serra Branca, south of the Raso da Catarina plateau in northeast Bahia. In 1995, a roosting site holding 22 birds was located at Sento Sé/Campo Formoso, 200 km (120 mi) to the west.<p>From these roosts, the macaws travel throughout the region (the municipalities of Campo Formoso, Canudos, Euclides da Cunha, Jeremoabo, Monte Santo, Novo Triunfo, Paulo Afonso, Santa Brígida and Sento Sé), relying on stands of licury palm to find much of their sustenance. This palm stand habitat is thought to have once stretched over 250,000 km2 (97,000 sq mi) in Brazil, but has been much reduced due to clearance for agriculture. Cattle grazing in the palm stands also appear to be damaging and killing the seedlings, thus posing a challenge for the recruitment of new mature palms -such stands were found to have very little young licury palms. In response to this, tens of thousands of palms were propagated and planted in fenced-off areas in the early 2000s.<p>Lear's macaw also requires pre-existing natural cavities found in the sandstone cliffs in which to nest. The availability of such cavities may eventually limit population growth, and thus one group of conservationists advised that more cavities should be excavated artificially.

Migration

Resident species

Behavior

Migration pattern: Resident species.

Conservation

Population trend: rising.

Population trend

rising