Blue-fronted Parrot
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Blue-fronted Parrot ( Amazona aestiva ) |
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| ( Linnaeus , 1758) |
The Blue-fronted Parrot ( Amazona aestiva ), sometimes also called Red-fronted, Yellow-fronted or Yellow-winged Parrot, is a species from the genus of the Amazon Parrots . The Amazona versicolor , which also belongs to the Amazon parrots, is sometimes referred to as the blue- fronted parrot . For this species, however, the name blue-masked parrot has established itself in German-speaking countries .
The blue-fronted parrot , along with the African gray parrot, is one of the most common parrot species kept in captivity. Similar to the African gray parrot, it is able to mimic human speech, which has contributed significantly to its popularity as a pet bird.
Appearance
Height and weight
Both in the wild and in captive blue-fronted Amazonia, there is great variability in body size and weight. Individuals weigh between 400 and 660 grams, the body length is between 33 and 36 centimeters. Females and males cannot be distinguished by their plumage, but females tend to be somewhat smaller. The length of the strong gray beak varies between 2.9 and 3.3 centimeters. The tail is between 11 and 14 centimeters long, the wingspan is about 22-24 cm.
Appearance
(This bird shows a typical behavior pattern of "good-humored" Amazon parrots, which want to draw attention to themselves: turning the head by almost 180 ° upwards, while bending the body and spreading the wings far upwards, while a long whistling sound is expelled.)
As with all representatives of the Amazon parrots, the basic plumage is green. While most species of this genus have a characteristic plumage, the color of the head, breast and wing cusps is very variable in the blue-fronted parrot. Most representatives of the blue-fronted parrot have a blue forehead. The front of the head, often the back of the head as well as the cheeks are pinnate yellow. In some individuals, the yellow feathers also extend to the throat area.
The upper and lower tail-coverts are yellowish green, the green tail has yellow tips at its end. The outer tail feathers are red at the base. The swinging hand rugs, on the other hand, are dark green in color and blue-violet at their tips. The feet of the blue-fronted parrot, like the strong beak, are gray in color, while the iris is orange. The eye ring is white.
Birds that are not yet fully grown are easiest to recognize by their dark brown irises. Otherwise, the coloration is also very variable with them. In general, the yellow and blue color areas are less extensive in young birds than in adults .
Wing bow color as a distinction between subspecies?
The wing bow color is occasionally used as a distinguishing feature of the two subspecies "Amazona aestiva aestiva" and "Amazona aestiva xanthopteryx". The nominate form A. ae. aestiva has a red bow of the wing in its ideal-typical appearance. In the subspecies A. ae. xanthopteryx, it is yellow. Investigations carried out in the 1980s on bird skins at the Senckenberg Museum in Frankfurt am Main and the Museum of Natural History in Stuttgart have shown, however, that such ideal plumage coloration is rarely found. In the specimens, which are to be assigned to the distribution area of the nominate form, a red plumage predominates on the wing bend; in those from the distribution area of A. ae. xanthopteryx a yellow color. In a very large part of the distribution area, however, the color distribution on the wing tip is fluid. From this some ornithologists have concluded that one cannot assume two clearly distinguishable subspecies.
Distribution and existence
Blue-fronted amazons have a very large distribution area in South America, which covers more than 3000 kilometers in length. It extends from Bolivia and Brazil to Paraguay and northern Argentina .
If one accepts a distinction between two subspecies, then the nominate form Amazona aestiva aestiva can be found in an area that extends in eastern Brazil from Piauí to the Rio Grande de Sul and the southeast of Mato Grosso . The species, however, is absent in the coastal area of Brazil.
Amazona aestiva xanthopteryx, on the other hand, occurs from the north and east of Bolivia and the southwest of Mato Grosso and Paraguay to the north of Argentina. Santa Fé and Buenos Aires represent the southern limit of distribution.
There are no population figures for the blue-fronted parrot. It is still considered common in the major part of its range, and the IUCN still classifies it as “Least Concern” and thus as safe.
Blue-fronted amazons in Stuttgart
In Stuttgart there is a free-living population of the Blue-fronted Parrot or of hybrids with the Yellow-headed Parrot . The neozoon population of amazons was created by a yellow-headed amazon that escaped in 1984 and one that was released in 1985. In 1986 the first brood with 3 young birds took place as a result. At the end of the 90s, 2 blue-fronted amazons were added to the population. The two species hybridized with each other. The hybrids between the two species are fertile .
habitat
In their large area of distribution, blue-fronted amazons use a large number of different habitats. They are more like birds of the wooded plains, although representatives of this species have been observed on the Brazilian high plateau and in the dry valleys of the Chacos up to an altitude of 1600 meters above sea level. Due to their dependence on tree hollows, they are always dependent on a stock of old trees in their habitat. Starting from such tree populations, however, they also use open cultivated land and areas with a savanna-like character for foraging.
Food and subsistence
Blue-fronted amazons are generally classified as food generalists who use a wide range of different forage crops. They mainly look for their food in the crown of trees and mostly use different types of palm, the fruits of which they eat at different degrees of ripeness. The birds are rarely seen alone when foraging for food. They usually go to their feeding places either in pairs or in small groups of six to eight individuals. In the vicinity of San Ramón de la Nueva Orán in western Argentina, blue-fronted amazons are feared pests of the orange plantations. Because of the abundant food supply, loose groups of up to 5,000 birds sometimes gather there. The foraging for food takes place mainly in the morning and evening hours. In between there is a rest and sleep phase, which the birds spend hidden in the treetops.
They basically peel seeds. Their eating behavior is very typical for parrots. A single seed is picked up by them in such a way that it stands vertically in the beak cavity. The birds press it against the upper beak with their tongue and then peel it out of its casing with the tip of the lower beak. If a nut or fruit is too big, it is gripped with one foot and then worked with the beak. Due to a lack of field observations, it is not known whether they concentrate exclusively on tree fruits or whether they occasionally eat flowers and leaves, as has been observed with other Amazon parrots. In the 1980s, the ornithologist Werner Lauterbach carried out extensive investigations on blue-fronted amazons kept in aviaries. This suggests that the food composition of the blue-fronted amazon is also subject to seasonal fluctuations in the wild. According to Lauterbach's research, it makes sense for birds kept in captivity to feed them two-thirds of the time outside of the breeding season with a dry mixture of grains and seeds, which in addition to cardi seeds also includes oats , wheat , millet , buckwheat , stone pine nuts, peanuts and pumpkin seeds as well as up to 20 % Contains sunflower seeds. The remaining third consists of fruit. Before the start of the breeding season, which in the wild coincides with the start of the rainy season, the diet is very largely switched to soft food. As their main food, the birds receive legumes that contain carbohydrates , which have been parboiled beforehand, as well as a mixture of fruit, berries, vegetables, green fodder and sprouted seeds.
In Argentina, blue-fronted amazons occasionally cause damage to orange plantations. They also loot corn fields from time to time. On the other hand, Blue-fronted Parasons are rarely seen for feeding on the ground. They only stay there to drink and to absorb mineral-rich soil. Blue-fronted amazons drink very little overall. The amount of liquid that they take in depends on the proportion of food dry seeds have in relation to fruits.
Behavior and reproduction
Rest and comfort behavior
Blue-fronted amazons are most active in the early morning and late afternoon hours. In between there is a rest and sleep phase lasting several hours. You then perch on one of the branches with slightly fluffed plumage; one leg is drawn up and hidden in the plumage. The second leg is aligned so that the grip foot is in the middle of the body's longitudinal axis. In the resting position, the head is only occasionally turned back about 180 degrees and hidden in the plumage, while sleeping this is basically the case. Resting birds often have their eyes closed, but react to acoustic stimuli in their environment by opening their eyes regularly. Sleeping birds close their eyes for a long time.
The birds end rest phases with stretching movements, in which they fan out their wings or spread a single leg backwards. This is often followed by cleaning the plumage, in which the blue-fronted parrot pulls feathers through its beak and cleans them with the help of the tongue (" comfort behavior "). Blue-fronted amazons can reach all the feathers of their plumage and thus clean them. The only exception is the head plumage. The mutual care of the head plumage is part of the pair bond and the social behavior of the Blue-fronted Parrot.
Rain is also used by the blue-fronted amazons to care for their plumage. They fluff up the plumage and spread the wings slightly in order to soak as large parts of their plumage as possible. This posture can be maintained for over an hour and is only interrupted in order to clean the plumage with the beak and tongue. From the keeping of aviaries it is known that the blue-fronted Amazonia also like to bathe in water bowls very extensively. In the wild, bathing in the rain-soaked leaves of deciduous trees has also been described for other parrot species. Presumably, however, this is also part of the behavioral repertoire of the Blue-fronted Amazon.
Locomotion
The typical mode of locomotion for blue-fronted amazons is climbing. The strong beak plays an important role in this. Like many species of parrots, blue-fronted parrots are able to hook or hook themselves with their beak and drag their entire body weight. They are also able to hang upside down from a branch and, if necessary, hold their body weight with just one foot. If blue-fronted amazons move along a branch, this is usually done in a sideways sliding movement: one foot is moved in the direction of movement, the second is then pulled up. Walking along a branch with the body axis parallel to the branch is also part of the repertoire of movements of the blue-fronted amazon, but is typical of the impressive behavior described below.
Blue-fronted amazons are rarely found on the ground. Walking at ground level, with the toes pointing inwards, seems awkward to people. In the detailed investigations that Werner Lantermann carried out on birds kept in aviaries, the parrots avoided staying on the ground and mostly only went to the aviary floor when they avoided aggressive conspecifics.
The flying up is preceded by an upward and downward movement of the head and a slight retraction of the wings in the Blue-fronted Amazon. The wing beats are soft and have their turning point below body level. The flight is occasionally interrupted by short gliding stretches in which the spread wings are slightly bent downwards.
Courtship
As with many other parrot species, there is also no distinctive or independent courtship behavior in the blue-fronted parrot. A behavioral repertoire that can also be observed outside the courtship period is only intensified quantitatively and qualitatively during this time. The function of courtship is to synchronize the mood of the two partners in a couple and to reduce the tendency to escape and attack between the two birds, so that ultimately copulation can occur.
Display behavior
Males show an impressive behavior, especially during courtship, which consists of spreading the neck plumage, a slight spreading of the wing bows from the body and a fanning out of the tail feathers. On the one hand, the male enlarges his appearance and at the same time presents the plumage, which stands out in its color from the otherwise green body plumage. This display of the body is usually accompanied by loud calls. Females are attracted by this behavior, while rival conspecifics are deterred. The demonstrative display of the body is often accompanied by a "walking" in which the longitudinal axis of the body is parallel to the branch. The male occasionally bites or picks into the branch.
The display behavior is usually particularly intense in unpaired males; However, it can also be omitted in the case of blue-fronted amazons that have been mated for a long time. It is then only shown as showing off to competing conspecifics.
Feathering
The actual pair formation is initiated by mutual feathering. The male approaches the female by moving sideways along a branch. A female who does not want the male to approach, turns her head towards the male with open beak and pushes it in the direction of the male. This behavior is also shown by both sexes, depending on the balun, if a conspecific falls below the individual distance . If, on the other hand, the female tolerates the approach of the male, then it turns the back of the head towards him as a crawl request. The feathering takes place mutually and becomes more intensive the more the breeding season advances. Only in the transition period between two reproduction periods does it largely disappear.
Partner feeding
The courtship behavior of the Blue- fronted Parrot also includes what is known as partner feeding , in which the male gaggles food porridge from his crop . With a crouched body and slightly fluffed plumage, the female assumes a posture that resembles that of begging young birds. The feed is handed over by the two birds crossing their beaks.
Partner feeding as part of courtship occurs in a number of parrot species. The male thus demonstrates that it can later feed the young and the brooding female. However, not every pair of blue-fronted parrot shows this behavior. In young or loosely mated specimens, it either does not occur at all or runs so asynchronously between the two birds that the females do not ingest the mash. In the case of blue-fronted amazons that have been mated for a long time, however, it can often be observed before the breeding season and serves to strengthen the partner relationship. During the time of rearing the young, partner feeding then only has its functional significance.
copulation
The request for copulation comes from the female. Here, too, the female adopts a posture that resembles that of a young bird begging for food. Her body lies almost horizontally on the branch. At the same time it emits enticing noises and trembles its wings. The male begins to initiate copulation by first cleaning the neck plumage of the female. It then climbs onto the female's back, occasionally holding onto the female's neck plumage. Both birds spread their tail feathers slightly and move their cloacal openings against each other with rhythmic movements.
Brood
Blue-fronted amazons use tree hollows and occasionally rock hollows for their breeding. Ornithologists Pat and John Stoodley name Quebracho colorado followed by Quebracho blanco as the most common nesting trees. Naturally created caves are used, which the male occasionally enlarges. No nesting material is introduced. When it rains, the male sits at the opening of the tree cavity and prevents water from entering the nest cavity with the wings open.
The female lays between one and five eggs, which are incubated by him alone. The Stoodley couple describe, however, that the males sit down with their wings open in front of the breeding cave, thus protecting eggs and young birds from rain.
Three eggs represent a normal laying size. The laying interval is an average of two days and the female usually starts brooding after the second egg has been laid. It then leaves the nest cavity only to take in food and give off faeces. The eggs are incubated between 25 and 26 days.
The start of breeding depends on the geographical location in the distribution area. In Paraguay the birds start to breed as early as October, while in northeast Argentina this can only be observed in December to January.
Fledglings
Freshly hatched blue-fronted amazons only have dunes a few millimeters long on the head and back and are otherwise bare. Of her four toes, three point forward and only one point back. The toe position typical of parrots with two toes pointing forwards and two backwards can only be observed from the 20th day of life. From this point on, you will gradually be able to stand on your feet.
The young birds leave the nest hole for the first time when their plumage is already fully developed. They are then 50 days old on average. At this point in time, their climbing ability is well developed and developing very quickly, so that they can reach the climbing agility of adult birds in a few days. However, they are not able to rest and sleep on one leg until they are around 70 days old.
As long as they stay in the nesting cavity, the young blue-fronted parrot only receive the food pulp that their parent birds choke out. They playfully nibble on the side walls of their nest cavity and practice using their beak. Only after leaving the breeding cave do they begin to eat food that has not yet been pre-digested by the parent birds. Young birds initially only eat soft food such as fruit and green forage. How hard-skinned grain forage is peeled with the help of the beak is learned from their parent birds. However, young birds only master the use of a foot to hold food at the age of 70 days.
After the young have left the nest box, the parent birds gradually become less willing to feed. As early as the third week after the young birds fledged, the male only chokes up food if they beg him beforehand. From the fourth week onwards, the male increasingly shows threatening gestures with an open beak. In the female, this sets in a little later and reaches its peak when the young birds are around 14 weeks old. At this point the young birds are able to feed on their own. The young birds are sexually mature when they are around five to six years old.
Transitional period until the next reproductive period
At the end of the reproductive period, the parent birds begin to moult . Until the beginning of the next reproductive period, there is little social contact even between paired blue-fronted amazons. Only when they are asleep do mated birds sit so close together that their bodies touch. Threatening and imposing behavior as well as the social feathering, however, can only rarely be observed during this time.
Human and Blue-fronted Parasons
Similar to the African gray parrot , the blue-fronted parrot is one of the more frequently kept ornamental birds. One attraction of the posture is that blue-fronted amazons are able to imitate sounds. For example, by shouting "Come in" when there is a knock at the door or calling out a name when the phone rings. Situational speaking behavior occurs in this type. Blue-fronted amazons can imitate human words and sounds from their surroundings - such as the ringing of a cell phone.
Blue-fronted amazons, which are kept in human care as young birds, can become extremely tame. They are therefore a traditional pet of South American Indians and have increasingly been kept as pets in North America and Europe since the 19th century . However, a marked change in behavior can occur when the birds have reached sexual maturity between the ages of five and six. They can then display a significantly more aggressive behavior and start, for example, by defending their cage against their owner.
Many of today's owners strive to give the birds as varied an environment as possible with climbing trees, nibbling and play equipment. However, only keeping them in pairs in spacious aviaries is considered species-appropriate, in which attempts to tame them are largely dispensed with. These aviaries have spacious indoor and outdoor areas. This type of keeping is complex. Since the birds call loudly, especially in the morning and evening hours, only a few keepers have the opportunity to offer these birds sufficient outdoor aviaries. There is therefore no commercial breeding of blue-fronted amazons; Offspring only come from enthusiasts.
literature
- Tony Silva: A Monograph of Endangered Parrots. Mattacchione and Co, Pickering, 1989, ISBN 0-9692640-4-6
- Werner Lantermann: Parrots: Critically Endangered. Rasch and Röhring, Hamburg, 1990, ISBN 3-89136-386-9
- John Stoodley, Pat Stoodley: Genus Amazona. Bezels Publications, Lovedean 1990, ISBN 0-947756-02-7
- Werner Lantermann: The blue-fronted parrot. Verlag Horst Müller, Walsrode 1987, ISBN 3-923269-34-X
supporting documents
- ↑ Figures from Lantermann, 1987, pp. 24 to 34
- ↑ a b cf. for example Hoppe, 1983, The systematic position of the amazons, pp. 217-220
- ↑ Lantermann, 1987, p. 35
- ↑ Martens / Woog 2017: Parrots in an urban jungle
- ↑ Stoodley, 1990, genus Amazona, p 41
- ↑ Lantermann, 1987, pp. 91 to 95
- ↑ Lantermann, 1987, p. 43
- ↑ Lantermann, 1987, pp. 49f.
- ↑ Stoodley, pp. 68f.
- ↑ Lantermann, 1987, p. 64
- ↑ a b c Stoodley, p. 41
- ^ The growing up of young birds has been described in detail by Lantermann, pp. 69 to 79. His observations are based on aviary birds
Web links
- Amazona aestiva in the endangered Red List species the IUCN 2008. Posted by: BirdLife International, 2008. Accessed on December 18 of 2008.
- Videos, photos and sound recordings about Amazona aestiva in the Internet Bird Collection