Blue-crowned Parakeet
Thectocercus acuticaudatus
Bright green bird with blue crown and face, distinct white eyering and long, pointed tail. Native to lowland dry forest and scrub in South America; introduced to urban areas in south Florida, California, and Honolulu, Hawaii. Often seen in small flocks; can travel large distances between roosts and feeding areas. Listen for high-pitched grating calls.
Identification
The blue-crowned parakeet is a medium-sized bird measuring approximately 37 cm (14.5 in) in length and weighing between 140 and 190 g (4.9 and 6.7 oz).<p>Blue-crowns are born with red coloring around the head, but blue-crowns are predominantly green, with dull blue coloring on the forehead, crown, cheeks, and ears in the nominate, but less blue in other subspecies. It has a ring of white featherless skin around each eye, though this is bright orange-yellow in wild T. acuticaudata neumanni. The breast feathers may also be tinged with blue, though they are more commonly green to yellow-green. Closed wing coloring matches that of the body while extended wings show blue-brown, becoming chestnut on the outer flight feathers. The tail feathers are green on top, maroon to red-brown on the underside, iridescing to bright orange and scarlet under full-spectrum light. Legs are pink-brown with grey-brown claws. The upper mandible is horn-colored, tapering to a needle-sharp, grey-black tip. In the southern and western nominate and subspecies neumanni, the lower mandible is horn-colored in juveniles, fading to grey-black by the bird's second year. The remaining eastern, central and northern subspecies retain the horn-colored lower mandible throughout adulthood.
Taxonomy
While T. acuticaudatus is the only species in the monotypic genus Thectocercus, this species has five subspecies:<p>Previously, this species was part of the genus Aratinga, but that genus was split in four distinct genera once various phylogenetic studies showed that the genus, as traditionally defined, was polyphyletic.
- Scientific name
- Thectocercus acuticaudatus
- Authority
- (Vieillot, 1818)
- Order
- Passeriformes
- Family
- Furnariidae
- Genus
- Thectocercus
Range and habitat
- Migration
- Nomadic movement
Conservation
- Population trend
- declining
Photos
Distribution
Bird Calls
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