Introduced African Grey parrot on Tenerife

African Grey (Psittacus erithacus) living in Puerto de la Cruz, TenerifeWe always wondered why we hear so few rapports about feral African Grey parrots (Psittacus erithacus) that have escaped and live feral lives. Handbook of the birds of the world (vol. 4) mentions that many African cities have feral populations. But that's about the extend of the reports. No mention of population size or breeding success. We know African Greys are capable of living free-range lives. Many people that free-fly their parrots have second guesses with African greys as they are supposed to get lost more often than other species of parrot. But in Cumbria UK many free-range grey parrots live in and around the country house of our friend there and he does not experience any trouble with them.

African Grey parrots (Psittacus erithacus) live free-ranging in Cumbria, UK.African Grey parrots are one of the most popular parrot species to keep as pets. One could expect many of them to escape captivity like all other parrots do. So why are there naturalized populations of macaws, amazons, cockatoos and all sorts of parakeets but non of the African grey parrot?

Evidence that they do escape and learn to survive in the wild is provided by this African grey parrot living on Tenerife. While we attended the Loro Parque 6 th international parrot convention we noticed one African grey flying around our hotel at Puerto de la Cruz. It took us several days to track him down and get an idea of its movements. Seems that he prefers a big tree in the garden of Hotel Catalonia Las Vegas at the Avenida del Generalisimo. He will sit in that tree from about an hour before sundown. Like most single parrots he typically vocalizes a lot in the hope to attract conspecifics. Strangely he uses sounds that are more similar to that of cockatiels so he might have been living with cockatiels for a while. Just before nightfall he flies off across town following the coastline. He settles in a pine tree at Plaza de Benito Perez Galdos close to locals that keep parrots in cages on rooftops. Which is probably the big attraction for this lonely bird.

Free-living African Grey in TenerifeThe African grey parrot seems to be settling in for the night. However he gets annoyed by the flashlight we use to make these unique photographs. He decides to fly on. Unfortunately we were not able to follow him any more as our stay on the island had come to an end. If you have any information on this or any other African Grey parrots living feral/naturalized somewhere in the world, please let us know.