Pacific Parrotlet

The Pacific Parrotlet, also known as Lesson's Parrotlet and Celestial Parrotlet, is a species of small parrot in the Psittacidae family, native to Ecuador and Peru. Its natural habitats are subtropical or tropical dry forests, subtropical or tropical moist lowland forests, subtropical or tropical dry shrubland, and heavily degraded former forest.

Parrotlets are the second smallest of all parrots. Pacific Parrotlets are between 4 1/2 to 5 1/2 inches in length. They come from South America in the area of Peru and Ecuador. There are seven species of Parrotlets. Only three of these species are kept as pets. Of these, the Pacific Parrotlet is the most common. It is sometimes called the Celestial Parrotlet.

The Pacific Parrotlet is green. The males have blue on their wings, backs and streaking back from their eyes. This is true of the male color mutation parrotlets also.

Aviculture

This species is very common in pet stores and is valued by breeders. Its normal price range is 150-200 USD. This price is much lower than other species because since 1930 the US has had an established breeding population in captivity, before the CITES laws preventing importing wildlife from foreign countries. They have a cost of $2 (two) in Peruvian markets. Some of the color mutations in aviculture include blue, American yellow, American White, European yellow and white, fallow, dark factor green and lutino.

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Spectacled Parrotlet

The Spectacled Parrotlet is a species of parrot in the Psittacidae family. It is found in Colombia, Panama, and Venezuela. Its natural habitats are subtropical or tropical dry forests, subtropical or tropical moist lowland forests, and heavily degraded former forest

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Blue-winged Parrotlet

The Blue-winged Parrotlet is a small parrot found in much of South America. It includes the Turquoise-rumped Parrotlet (Forpus xanthopterygius spengeli), which sometimes is treated as a separate species. The Blue-winged Parrotlet is mainly found in lowlands, but locally up to 1200m in south-eastern Brazil. It occurs in woodland, scrub, savanna, and pastures. Flocks are usually around 20 birds but can grow to over 50 around fruiting trees or seeding grasses. It is generally common and widespread, though more localized in the Amazon Basin.

Description

The Blue-winged Parrotlet is a short (12 cm) stocky mainly green bird with a short tapered tail. Sexually dimorphic, the males have blue on the primary and underwing coverts, the remiges and the rump (blue in wings greatly reduced in F. x. spengeli). The face, ear coverts, thighs and vent area are a brighter emerald green. Females, which lack the identifying blue coloration, are easily confused with the Green-rumped Parrotlet, but there is little overlap in their distributions. The subspecies varies primarily in the overall darkness and the amount of yellow to the plumage.

Taxonomy

For a while it was considered conspecific with the Green-rumped Parrotlet (F. passerinus), but today all authorities recognized the two as separate species. It is also possible that the subspecies spengeli is better classified as a subspecies of the Mexican Parrotlet (F. cyanopygis), or, more likely, a species of its own, the Turquoise-rumped Parrotlet (F. spengeli).

Name

This is a rare case in which the common name has been more stable than the binomial. F. xanthopterygius initially referred to two species, one of which was a different species, the Canary-winged Parakeet. Consequently, the Brazilian ornithologist Pinto discarded the name F. xanthopterygius for the Blue-winged Parrotlet in 1945, and instead applied the next oldest name, F. crassirostris. That same year it was mistakenly written up as F. xanthopterygius crassirostris and it reverted to F. xanthopterygius again. In 1978, Pinto mentioned the mistake in Novo catálogo das aves do Brasil and the name was changed to F. crassirostris. However, as was pointed out in 1999, the original name F. xanthopterygius remains valid per ICZN rules, and consequently this name has been re-applied to the Blue-winged Parrotlet. To increase the confusion, the name of the nominate subspecies also changed: F. x. xanthopterygius is the subspecies formerly listed as F. c. vividus.

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Green-rumped Parrotlet

The Green-rumped Parrotlet, is a small parrot. It is a resident breeding bird in tropical South America, from Caribbean regions of Colombia, Venezuela and Trinidad south and east to the Guianas and Brazil, on the downstream Amazon River. It has been introduced in Jamaica, Curaçao, Barbados and Tobago, and was not recorded on Trinidad prior to 1916.

Its habitat is open forest and scrub. The female lays five to seven white eggs in a hole in a termite nest, tree cavity, or even hollow pipe, and incubates the clutch for 18 days to hatching, with about another five weeks to fledging.

The Green-rumped Parrotlet is about 12 cm (4.8 in) long and weighs 23 g and is the smallest parrot found in the Americas. It is mainly bright green with a short tail and pinkish bill. The male has a brilliant blue wing patch, and females sometimes have some yellow on the head. The subspecies F. p. viridissimus of Venezuela, Trinidad and Tobago is darker green than the nominate F. p. passerinus, and the males have more strongly blue-tinged wings.

Green-rumped Parrotlets make light, twittering calls. They eat seeds including those of grasses. They are very gregarious and roost communally; large numbers can be seen at the roost sites at dawn and dusk.

This is a widespread and common species which has benefited from deforestation

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