Goodness Readers, 31st May was International Parrot Day, but it seems that the cell senescence that I’m currently studying must have migrated to my own brain, because I missed it. Still! There’s always time to celebrate our psittacine friends, intelligent birds that they are, and such a range of species, from budgerigars to cockatoos to macaws to the beloved kakapo (though not quite so well-loved by this TV presenter....)
Kakapo (Photo By Department of Conservation – https://www.flickr.com/photos/docnz/4015891720/, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=48081940)
When I was growing up I knew lots of people who owned the smaller parrots – budgies, lovebirds and cockatiels to name but a few – but I’m pleased that they don’t seem to be so popular as pets these days. The larger parrots, particularly the African Grey, are so intelligent and in need of company (not to mention long-lived) that they often suffer from health problems in captivity, ripping out their own feathers and developing a whole range of neuroses, poor things. Better to watch them in a wildlife documentary, or see them in. the wild if you’re lucky enough to have a wild parrot population. I’m envious of my Australian friends, some of whom seem to have cockatoos turning up on their balconies on a regular basis.
Leadbeater’s Cockatoo, from Queensland, Australia (Photo By derivative work: Snowmanradio (talk)Pink_Cockatoo_Bowra_Mar08.jpg: Aviceda – self-made by author and uploader Aviceda, who posted the original version to commons at Pink_Cockatoo_Bowra_Mar08.jpg, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=5586793)
And I would really like to see macaws someday. Such extraordinary colours!
Blue and Yellow Macaw (Photo By I, Luc Viatour, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=7427034)
Here in the UK of course we only have the non-native Ring-necked Parakeets, and indeed there are few wild parrots outside of pan tropical regions.. However, there was once an American parrot – the Carolina Parakeet was declared extinct in 1939, after the last captive specimen died in 1910 and no wild birds were seen. It apparently lived in large, noisy flocks of up to 300 birds and, much like the Monk Parakeet (which is still flourishing thank goodness), used to have communal nests, where several females would lay their eggs together and then (presumably) share the incubation and feeding. Apparently the flesh of the parrot was poisonous (Audubon mentions that a cat dropped dead after eating one), possibly because it fed on a toxic plant called the cocklebur. There is some debate about why it suddenly became extinct – it seemed to be doing well as recently as 1904, but then the population plummeted. Some suspect either bird flu or some other disease picked up from poultry, but I suspect we’ll never know.
Carolina Parakeet – Illustration by Audubon
Let me know if you have any parrot stories!