[order] PSITTACIFORMES | [family] Psittacidae | [latin] Amazona autumnalis | [authority] Linnaeus, 1758 | [UK] Red-lored Amazon | [FR] Amazone a diademe | [DE] Rotstirn-Amazone | [ES] Amazona Frentirroja, Lora Cariamarilla (HN) | [NL] Geelwangenamazone | [copyright picture] Tomasz Wagner
Monotypic species
Genus
Amazon parrot is the common name for a parrot of the genus Amazona. These are medium-size parrots native to the New World ranging from South America to Mexico and the Caribbean. Most Amazon parrots are predominantly green, with accenting colors that depend on the species and can be quite vivid. They have comparatively short, somewhat square, tails. Just like the other parrots, amazons have four toes on each foot, two pointing forwards and two pointing backward. They feed primarily on seeds, nuts, and fruits, supplemented by leafy matter. Almost everywhere in the lowlands of tropical and subtropical America, the savannas, grassy openings in the forest, and roadsides are frequented by flocks of very small finches with short and thick bills, which feed on the seeds of grasses. In the genus Sporophila, the males are clad in black, black and white, or black and chestnut, while the dull females are olive or buff. Often the same species shows pronounced variation in plumage from region to region.
All of the different races are largely green with an orange-red speculum (visible both at rest and in flight), but chiefly differ in the amount of red on the head, which varies from a being a narrow line over the lores and through the eye, to a substantial forehead and chin patch.
Listen to the sound of Red-lored Amazon
[audio:http://www.planetofbirds.com/MASTER/PSITTACIFORMES/Psittacidae/sounds/Red-lored Amazon.mp3]
Copyright remark: Most sounds derived from xeno-canto
recorded by Jorgen Peter Kjeldsen
| wingspan min.: |
0 |
cm |
wingspan max.: |
0 |
cm |
| size min.: |
32 |
cm |
size max.: |
35 |
cm |
| incubation min.: |
26 |
days |
incubation max.: |
30 |
days |
| fledging min.: |
50 |
days |
fledging max.: |
60 |
days |
| broods: |
1 |
|
eggs min.: |
3 |
|
| |
|
|
eggs max.: |
4 |
|
Latin America : East Mexico to West Ecuador. Four subspecies of the Red-lored Parrot are recognized over its rather wide range, which extends over the Caribbean slope of Middle America, from eastern Mexico south to Panama, and in northern South America from northwest Venezuela somewhat discontinuously south to western Ecuador, with a highly disjunct population in the Amazon basin of northwest Brazil.
Wide range of wooded and open habitats with trees including rain forest, tropical deciduous forest, Pinus woodlands, mangroves, wooded swamps, gallery forest, cultivated areas with tall trees, and plantations; also scrubby dry forest in southern Ecuador, from sea level up to 1,100 m in Honduras.
They use holes in dead trees as Ceiba or palm trees. They breed between February and April, but in sites as Colombia from December. Clutch size is 3 to 4 eggs, incubation last 28 days; nestlings are born without feathers and fledge from nests at 55 days.
It feeds on fruits from palms, figs, beans and other species, and seeds, leaves, flower buds and fruits from cultivated plants. They fly in big groups from the roost to the feeding sites. When in the feeding grounds they perch in the top of trees. They take twigs with fruits with the legs, get the fruits and consume the seeds discarding the rest.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oA14Ad7HZ40
copyright: Max Roth
This species has a very large range, and hence does not approach the thresholds for Vulnerable under the range size criterion (Extent of Occurrence <20,000 km2 combined with a declining or fluctuating range size, habitat extent/quality, or population size and a small number of locations or severe fragmentation). Despite the fact that the population trend appears to be decreasing, the decline is not believed to be sufficiently rapid to approach the thresholds for Vulnerable under the population trend criterion (>30% decline over ten years or three generations). The population size is very large, and hence does not approach the thresholds for Vulnerable under the population size criterion (<10,000 mature individuals with a continuing decline estimated to be >10% in ten years or three generations, or with a specified population structure). For these reasons the species is evaluated as Least Concern.
Rare west of Andes in Ecuador and Colombia (400-600 individuals of race lilacina). The forests it inhabits in Ecuador are among the most threatened habitats of the world. The human population of Ecuador has increased from 4 to 11 million inhabitants between 1960 and 1991 with devastating effects on the forest ecosystem. 90-97% of the forest has been cleared for agriculture, and 80% of mangroves have been cleared for shrimp farming. Other threats in Ecuador: building of roads, hunting, trapping, theft of chicks from nests. Declined drastically in Honduras, where trapped heavely for export, and perhaps extirpated Utila for the same reason.
Throughout its range, the Red-lored Parrot is found in wooded lowland habitats, although it is usually absent from large continuous expanses of forest
