Information About Parrots and Their Allies

315 Parrots, parakeets, cockatiels, lories, lorikeets, macaws, lovers, wings, budgerigars, are different groups; yet they are so uniform in their diagnostic forms, that they are all recognized at a glance as members of the parrot order and family. Sizes range from the smallest 3.5-inch pygmy parrot of the Papua region to the gaudy, long-tailed, 40-inch macaws of the Amazon. Shapes vary from the fat African American and South American Amazons to the slender Lories and crested cockatoos of the Southern Malayan region. The color depends on the overall view, but the bodies are usually solid green, yellow, red, white, or black, with contrasting patches of red, yellow, or blue on the head, wings, or tail.

The distinguishing characteristics are the large head and short neck, and especially the very curved, hooked beak. An equally important structural feature is the parrot’s strong, two-toed feet in front and two behind. Parrots also have a wide wax at the base of the bill through which the nostrils open and which in many species are feathered. Their small eyes are often surrounded by patches of bare skin, especially in larger species. Rare dusty feathers scattered throughout.

The parrots are an ancient distinctive group well-deserved in the ordinal order. They show certain affinities in anatomy and habit with both pigeons and cuckoos. As an arboreal bird, their fossil record is poor. The first ones so far excavated were of the Miocene age, less than 15 million years ago. These showy parrots were once more widely distributed than they are today, spreading as far north as Canada in North America and into France and Europe.

The current distribution of the parrot is pan-tropical. They occur in all countries in the Southern Hemisphere except the tip of southern Africa and the outermost Pacific islands. In the Northern Hemisphere now to Northern Mexico (media United, until recently) in the New World and Southern Ancient Asia. The parrots fall into six major groups, which are sometimes given the status of family, but the structural differences between them are so slight that most students today agree on them best.

Since they have never been domesticated, like chickens, ducks, and pigeons, there are probably more species of parrots that have been tamed and bred in captivity than any other group of birds. Primitive tribes have preserved them from time immemorial. The story of the ability of African gray parrots is mentioned in ancient Greek and Roman writings. The appeal of the parrot is partly aesthetic, partly anthropomorphic. With their flattering colors and the ease with which they are tamed and fed in captivity, they have a human appearance, imitating the human voice, showing affection to each other, acting in flattery, using their feet almost as much as their hands. No other bird food holds it with one foot, and bites off pieces as much as it eats a sandwich. A long-lived parrot. How long the birds live in the wild, where their natural enemies take their toll, is unknown, but each one lived up. 50 years in captivity, and one is said to have reached 80.

Parrot’s attributes

Parrots develop their mimicry ability only in captivity. In the wild, there are hoarse-sounding birds, or screeching, or screeching, or screeching, according to their size, and their lack of voice. In captivity, however, they learn to imitate all sounds, and to imitate some species better than others. The African Grey parrot is considered one of the most popular parrots, closely followed by the green amazons of Central and South America. Major and minor species do not do well. Cockatoos and macaws can learn a phrase or two, and little budgies and parakeets can be taught to whistle if one has enough patience.

Parrot lovers will bring examples to prove the contrary, talking parrots have not the faintest idea of ​​what they are talking about. It is often a bit of a fantasy to enunciate proper words with syllables. Parrots learn best when they are young and hear simpler sounds repeated more often with little choice or selection. A friend kept a young Amazon Crocus in a bag while a house was being built on a nearby site. Searching through the zipping sound of the hand saw, the bird made this favorite item if its vocabulary. A friend of mine just got tired of listening to carpenters all day every day and gave the bird to the zoo.

Parrot breeders had a serious blow in the 1930s when a virus was discovered in parrots, first called psittacosis, which humans can transmit, sometimes in a virulent form. To combat this disease, the importation of uncultivated was prohibited, and the trade in parrots was restricted. a serious disadvantage. Later, researchers declared that “parrot fever” occurs in almost all birds, including domestic birds and pigeons, and the disease is now more appropriately called ornithosis. Antitoxins and antibiotics have been developed that greatly reduce the severity of virulent strains, and the fear of disease is now largely overcome. The parrot is again gaining popularity as birds , especially the little budgerigars, which are now born in white and yellow, far from the wild and green progenitors of Australia removed from the blue ones.

Gaudy Macaws

The kings of the parrot family are the 15 macaws that live in the tropical rainforests of southern Mexico through Central and South America. One of the largest and most beautiful is the red and green macaw found in Bolivia from Panama. Its tail alone when fully grown is more than two feet long. A slightly smaller blue macaw, a parrot beloved by ghosts because of its beautiful coloring, lives only in the wild wastes of the interior of Brazil. The most common macaws seen in zoos are the Scarlet Macaw and Scarlet Macaws. Another species from the south of Mexico is the Military Macaw, a red-fronted green. Macaws usually travel on slender pedicels ca. These magnificent birds, wearing their native high armor, with their strong and swift wings, make a far greater impression on the sight than their tame counterparts on the pole, and are never forgotten. The other members of the group are smaller; all the long-tailed bed.

New World Parrots

Perhaps the best-known New World parrots are the 25 or so species of Amazons, often kept as aviaries. Green parrots are robust with short, square or rounded tails, most marked with yellow, red or blue. One of the largest, the Yellow-headed Amazon, is among the most talkative of the American parrots. Other amazons commonly included are yellow- and red-fronted, some yellow-fronted, and others red-fronted. One of the smallest is the White-fronted Amazon, with a white forehead, red flowers, and red wings in the male.

Among the less familiar groups of New World parrots are the conures, which are smaller and more slender than the amazons and have longer, pointed tails. The most important of this group is the Golden Conure of Brazil. Also listed here is the only parrot native to the United States, the recently extinct Carolina Parakeet, a small enough parrot about 12 inches long with a yellow-green body, a long pointed tail, a yellow-yellow head.

In the early 19th century Carolina parakeets ranged from North Dakota and central New York south to east Texas and Florida, and were abundant in on the heavily wooded bottom of the Mississippi and the Atlantic coast. They killed the game, and their prey to control the fruits and crops, the confluent parakeets had a miserable habit of flying in curiosity and anxiety over the fallen bird, so that the hunter could often kill them all. They were last seen in the Florida Everglades in the early 1920s. Although common as caged birds in the 19th century, they were never successfully bred in captivity and the species disappeared before a determined effort was made to preserve it.

Similar in size and shape to the Amazon is the African Gray Parakeet, which commands the highest price of all parakeets among bird traders because of its sporting excellence. This grey, red-tailed bird is at home in the rainforests of the Congo from the Gold Coast to Kenya and Tangayika. Like so many small parrots in the woods, generally in chirping, flocks chattering through the tops of the trees. In West Africa it causes great damage to corn.

Loves

The lovebirds are a group of small, heavy, pointed parrots of the Old World, best developed in Africa and Madagascar. The caged birds are a char- acter, partly by their beautiful colors, partly by the company of human benevolence towards one another. The birds sit together in the cages for an hour, bearing witness to their love for each other. In the wild, lovebirds usually travel in large herds and often damage crops. The sexes are in most respects alike, in the pleasantness of the Chosen, in the South Pacific islands, the sexes are so different. in color (the male is green, the female is soft), they were once believed to be different species.

Parakeet

True Parakeets are a widespread group of the Old World located in the Indo-Malayan region. Most of these parrots have long pointed tails. Many live in cultivated areas and eat grain and fruit. They drive large herds of cattle and often graze on the ground. The most famous group of Australian Budgerigar, now a popular bird watch. An odd group is the hanging parakeet, tiny green birds found from India to the Philippines that sleep at night hanging from poles like bats.

Another distinct group of South-Malayan parrots consists of 16 cockatoos, which differ from other parrots in having a long, pointed crest of feathers and can raise them at will. Most of them are beautiful white birds, often washed or dyed with russet or yellow, and in some the crest is of a different color. Wild cockatoos are noisy, gregarious birds that roam the peaks in small flocks and are perched on bare limbs where they stand out conspicuously against the dark foliage. The white cockatoos of the Solomon Islands were known to the Americans there during World War II, and people got them alive. from native pets. Seabeus worship taught one bird to scornfully “Bledsoe said so,” to the delight of the soldiers and the annoyance of their chief executive, Mr. Bledsoe. Among the white cockatoos commonly seen in zoos are the Sulphur-crested Cockatoo with its yellow-yellow crown, and the Pink-capped Cockatoo.

Black Cockatoo

It is the largest of the 31-inch black New Guinea Cockatoos, whose tremendously curved beak ends in a long, sharp point. With this the Black Cockatoo digs out the cracks and hard nuts from the hard nuts, which the annoying man breaks with a rock. Unlike White Cockatoos, the Black Cockatoo is a solitary bird, solitary or seen alone or in small groups of two or three in the high forest tops. Also unlike other cockatoos, the Black Cockatoo has a bare face, and its cheeks change from pink to red with the movement of a bird.

Lories and Lorikeets

Lories and lorikeets of the Australasia region, 6 to 15 inches long, brightly colored in greens, blues, reds and yellows, have brush-edged tongues protruding from their mouths to lick up nectar and fruit juices. Unlike other nectar-eating birds, which siphon a thin flower tube for nectar with their beaks, lorikeets break flowers with their beaks and lick up the juices with their tongues. A common bird in the cocoa plants throughout the Southern Sea is the painted, or Rainbow, Lorikeet, slender; tailed bird breaking into many geographical nations, each island’s population varying slightly in color and size. Great flocks of these birds chatter on the tops, and chatter on the leaves of the palm-trees like many bright flowers. As if suddenly with a great rush of wings the chatterings take flight again.

Pygmy parrots

The smallest of the family are the pygmy parrots, only 3 to 5 inches in length, of which six species range from New Guinea eastward through New Britain and the Solomons. These midgets act more like pitchforks than parrots. They creep around the trunks and large limbs of forest trees, scavenging for insects from holes in the bark. They have hard tail spikes like thorny tips, and long claws to cling to bark. They are not so common or gregarious as most parrots, and are quiet and difficult in wild habitats. They have never been successfully kept in captivity.

Kakapo

The smallest and most aberrant of all parrots is the Kakapo, or Owl Parrot, of New Zealand. This very rare bird is threatened with extinction by predators introduced to New Zealand, because it has lost the power of flight. A large parrot about 20 inches long, its soft plumage cryptically streaked with greens, yellows, browns, and blacks. Generally nocturnal, it hides in rock caves and under tree roots during the day and comes out to forage in the evening. . He runs quickly to the ground and often spreads his wings when he is in a hurry. It climbs dwarf fruit trees and collects nectar and then slides down to the ground. His longest lap on record is about 90 yards. It lives in the forest and frequents its path and open paths by pulling out roots and vegetation in the way. The kakapo is believed to be extinct in North Iceland but a few have recently been reported still surviving in the great beech forests of South Iceland.

Kea and Kaka

Equally distinct and abnormal are the two other parrots of New Zealand, the Kea and the Kaka, larger birds about the size of a crow, variously marked in brown-green, red, and yellow. The mountain kea is a tree-dwelling form in the alpine regions of the southern island, where it nests in cracks and crevices under rocks. In summer it lives on a normal parrot diet and fruit, which is supplemented by insects, worms and worms. In winter it descends to the lower regions where it becomes a scavenger, and has acquired the habit of digging on the backs of living sheep for its fat kidneys. To check the slaughter of his sheep, a bounty was imposed on Keas, and for nearly thirty years he paid thirty thousand. This made little progress with the population, which seems to have increased because of the abundance of food. Removing all the sheep after slaughter is discovered is a more effective way of controlling them.

A close relative of the Kea, the Kaka, inhabits the flat forests of both islands. It is a talkative bird usually in flocks. He lives on fruit and nectar, and he digs out the rotten wood with his strong beak.

Parrots shot

The parrot is surprisingly consistent in its nesting behavior. Parrot The eggs are quite white, round, always white, quite shiny. The number per clutch varies from 1 in some larger species to 9 or 10 in some smaller ones, and averages 3 to 5. Most parrots are hollow nesters and usually lay in a loose hole in a tree. Some nest in tunnels on the ground, some in rock caves. Pygmy parakeets and many other small Australasian species excavate nests in termite houses. Incubation is generally by both sexes; in a few female species only. The young usually hatch naked, but soon emerge with a down coat, which makes them look remarkably like nightingales. Little known incubation periods, but in smaller parakeets they run from about 17 to 20 days. Both sexes feed their young by regurgitation, like pigeons.

Grey-breasted Parakeets of Argentina nest in huge nesting structures built high in the branches of trees, in which each pair of birds has its own private cell. The birds use these huge nests as sleeping quarters throughout the year and add to them year after year until they break the carts or twigs of more supporting branches. Other birds, such as tree-ducks, sometimes occupy the empty nests in these colonies with the parakeets, and sometimes, on the contrary, sometimes go over and apparently live in peace with them.

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