The Blue-headed Parrot also known as the Blue-headed Pionus, Pionus menstruus, is a medium large parrot. It is about about 27 cm long and they are mainly green with a blue head and neck, and red under tail feathers. It is a resident breeding bird in tropical South America and southern Central America, from Costa Rica, Venezuela and Trinidad south to Bolivia and Brazil. It is named for its medium-blue head and neck.
Its habitat is forest and semi-open country, including cultivated areas. The Blue-headed Parrot lays three to five white eggs in a tree cavity.
Blue-headed Parrots are noisy birds and make light, high-pitched squeaking sweenk calls. They eat fruit and seeds, and sometimes grain. They roost communally in palm and other trees, and large numbers can be seen at the roost sites at dawn and dusk.
Blue-headed Pionus parrots are popular as pets. Compared to other parrot species (Amazons for example) they are very quiet. They are affectionate, but not known for their talking ability.
Description
The Blue-headed Parrot is about 28 cm (11 in) long and weighs 245 gm. It is mainly green with a blue head, neck and upper breast, red undertail, and some yellow on the wing coverts. The upper mandible is black with reddish areas on both sides. They have dark ear patches. Sexes are alike, and juvenile birds have less blue on the head, as well as red or pinkish feathers around the ceres. They moult into their adult plumage at about 8 months of age, but it can take up to two years for the full blue hood to emerge.
Range
America-Amazon basin
The Blue-headed Parrot in South America, is mainly an Amazon Basin species, including in the southeast the neighboring Araguaia-Tocantins River system as its eastern limit; a disjunct population lives southeastwards on Brazil's South Atlantic coast, a coastal strip from Pernambuco in the north to Espírito Santo state in the south, about 1500 km long.
Costa Rica-Panama
In northwest South America the range continues into Central American Panama to Costa Rica. It avoids the northern Andes cordillera spine, and a smaller contiguous area of central Venezuela and northern Colombia. A Pacific Ocean coastal strip continues the range, from southern Ecuador, north to Caribbean areas of northwestern Colombia and western Venezuela.
Behaviour
Food and feeding
They eat fruit and seeds, and sometimes grain.
Breeding
The Blue-headed Parrot nests in tree cavities. The eggs are white and there are usually three to five in a clutch. The female incubates the eggs for about 26 days and the chicks leave the nest about 70 days after hatching.
Gallery
On perch
On perch
Pet parrot
