January 25, 2004 — Filed in: Feral, Naturalized and City Parrots
Annie Nakao, Chronicle Staff Writer
They swoop down like winged hang gliders, cloaked in velvety green and red, squawking imperiously to announce their arrival in Mark Bittner’s cherry tree.
January 20, 2004 — Filed in: Feral, Naturalized and City Parrots
The Red-crowned Parrot (Amazona viridigenalis) is a popular species in the pet trade, where it is often known as the Green-cheeked Parrot. It is native to the eastern coast of Mexico and was one of the first of the amazons to appear in numbers in South Florida.
June 26, 2003 — Filed in: Conservation
Proyecto Hapalopsittaca, a previous BP Conservation Programme Award winner, is one of only two projects to have been granted a follow-up Consolidation Award of US$75,000. Last year the team shot to fame after their dramatic rediscovery of Fuertesi’s Parrot (Hapalopsittaca fuertsi) (also known as Indigo-winged Parrot). The second Consolidation Award went to a team carrying out research, education and conservation work in the remote spiny forests of southern and central Madagascar.
April 07, 2003 — Filed in: Feral, Naturalized and City Parrots
From Los Angeles to Montreal, London to Madrid, parakeets are moving up the urban pecking order. The wild ancestors of pet store imports, these small parrots are moving into cities throughout North America and Europe.
December 22, 2002 — Filed in: Parrot News
A Spix’s Macaw, the world’s rarest parrot, made a long flight home today from Colorado to Brazil, 25 years after being taken from the wild, smuggled to Europe, and subsequently to the USA. With luck, this avian “Rip Van Winkle” will provide the genetic shot-in-the-arm that the species needs to bring it back from the brink of extinction. The iridescent indigo-blue macaw with a long sweeping tail is a unique bird. Never common, the Spix’s became extinct in the wild two years ago following decades of decline from trapping and habitat loss.
August 21, 2002 — Filed in: Parrot News
This July 28, researchers with ProAves Colombia, supported by American Bird Conservancy (ABC) and the World Parrot Trust (WPT), photographed one of the world’s rarest parrots in the high Andes of Colombia confirming the survival of this long lost species. Colombian ornithologists Jorge Velasquez and Alonso Quevedo found a flock of 14 Fuertes’s Parrots in a remote area of the central Andes close to Los Nevados National Park.
August 21, 2002 — Filed in: Conservation
Kakapo (Strigops habroptilus), New Zealand’s nocturnal, flightless parrot, are set for the best breeding season ever after a record 53 eggs were laid during the 2001/2002 breeding season. By late April, of the 26 fertile eggs laid, 25 chicks were still surviving, a remarkable achievement that raises the world population of Kakapo from 62 to 87.
August 20, 2002 — Filed in: Conservation
Just days before Palm Sunday, the Catholic Church in western Colombia elected to support alternatives to cutting down wax palms for adorning traditional processions. Instead, Fundación ProAves - Colombia distributed more than 2,500 balloons, 2,000 tree branches (from coffee, eucalyptus and pines), and 500 palm fronds (from abundant lowland species) to churchgoers. Twice as many people as usual took part in the procession, none with wax palm fronds. 600 wax palm seedlings were presented to families to plant afterwards.
Wax Palms Ceroxylon quindiuense - an Endangered species - are cut down to adorn processions and churches throughout the Colombian Andes each Palm Sunday. The critically endangered Yellow-eared Parrot (Ognorhynchus icterotis) is entirely dependent on the wax palm for nesting and roosting. In 2001, a new population of Yellow-eared Parrots was discovered in western Colombia (now known to be 277 individuals, two-thirds of the world population), but their habitat was being rapidly decimated.
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