Rusty-faced Parrot
Hapalopsittaca amazonina
A beautiful short-tailed parrot of high elevations in the Andes of Colombia and Venezuela. Mostly green body with a rusty face, orange-brown or yellowish-green chest, red shoulder, blue primaries, and red tail with blue tip. Sexes similar. Rare, in pairs or small groups flying, perched, or eating in canopy at high elevations of cloud forest. Calls in flight are loud and metallic. No similar species.
Identification
The rusty-faced parrot is about 23 cm (9.1 in) long and weighs 97 to 115 g (3.4 to 4.1 oz). Adults of the nominate subspecies H. a. amazonina have a dull orange-red forehead and crown, yellow lores, an orange-red chin, and brownish red ear coverts with yellow streaks. Their upperparts are green with a red shoulder. Their breast is buffy olive and the rest of their underparts grass green. Their primaries and secondary coverts are blue, the former darker than the latter. Their tail is dark red with blue-black to violet blue tips. Immature birds have a duller red face with fewer yellow streaks than adults. Subspecies H. a. theresae has darker green upperparts than the nominate, and the red on their face is more brownish, their ear coverts darker, and their breast rusty olive. H. a. velezi is like the nominate with the addition of a golden olive hindneck and nape.
Taxonomy
The rusty-faced parrot has these three subspecies:<p>What are now Fuertes's parrot (H. fuertesi) and the red-faced parrot (H. pyrrhops) were previously treated as subspecies of the rusty-faced parrot. The three now make a superspecies.
- Scientific name
- Hapalopsittaca amazonina
- Authority
- (des Murs, 1845)
- Order
- Psittaciformes
- Family
- Psittacidae
- Genus
- Hapalopsittaca
Range and habitat
The subspecies of the rusty-faced parrot are found thus:<p>Undocumented sight records in Ecuador lead the South American Classification Committee of the American Ornithological Society to classify the species as hypothetical in that country.<p>The rusty-faced parrot mostly inhabits very wet cloudforest, though H. a. velezi has been recorded where the alder Alnus acuminata has been used for reforestation. In elevation it mostly ranges between 2,500 and 3,000 m (8,200 and 9,800 ft) but has been recorded as low as 1,500 m (4,900 ft) and as high as 3,500 m (11,500 ft).
- Migration
- Resident species
Behavior
Only small elevational movements are known for the rusty-faced parrot.<p>The rusty-faced parrot feeds on seeds and fruit including those of genus Clusia and mistletoes.<p>Nothing is known about the rusty-faced parrot's breeding biology.<p>The rusty-faced parrot's flight call is "a repeated strident and loud “creek!”." It also makes " similar piercing calls such as “creenk!” or a more bisyllabic “shreeank” " when perched.
Conservation
- Population trend
- declining
Photos
Distribution
Bird Calls
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