Nombre en español: Cotorra Cabeciazul

Nombre cientifico: Pionus Menstruus

Nombre en ingles: Blue-headed Parrot

Familia: Psittacidae

Foto: Mauricio Ossa

El loro cabeciazul (Pionus menstruus) es una especie de ave neotropical de la familia de los loros.

De cabeza grande y cola corta; este robusto loro suele vivir en las copas de áreas arboladas. Forma bandadas cuando no cría, y pasa la noche en grandes grupos en los árboles.

Suelen recorrer cierta distancia para pasar la noche, sobrevolando los árboles veloz y enérgicamente. En vuelo es ruidoso, con fuertes y ásperos gritos y reclamos chirriantes y agudos. Calla tras posarse en los árboles para comer. La dieta consiste en frutos, semillas y flores, sobre todo de árboles, aunque a veces visita labrantios para asaltar cultivos como maizales y platanares.

Características físicas

En los adultos la cabeza y el cuello son principalmente de color azul brillante, mezclado con rojo rosáceo en la garganta, y la mancha auricular es negra. El pecho es verdoso oscuro con un escamado azul (es azul casi uniforme en los machos) y el abdomen verde. Es verde más oscuro por encima, con las primarias y las timoneras azules, en gran parte, y las coberteras infracaudales y el vexilo interno de las timoneras rojo rosáceo. El iris es café oscuro. El pico, la cera y el anillo ocular son de color negruzco, con una mancha cuadrada rojiza rosácea a cada lado de la maxila, las patas son parduzcas.

Comportamiento

Frecuentemente forman grandes dormitorios comunales, de donde emergen en pequeñas bandadas para alimentarse durante el día. Es considerada una especie plaga, pues se alimenta de los granos de arroz y maíz.

Presentan un tipo de alimentación denominada geofagia consistente en la alimentación de suelos. Se cree que su significación evolutiva es debida a que se genera un potencial de detoxificación. y muy jugetones

Reproducción

Se reproducen durante la estación seca.

Importancia

Son dispersores de semillas y alimento para otros animales.

Estatus

Ampliamente distribuida.

Blue-headed parrot

The blue-headed parrot, also known as the blue-headed pionus (Pionus menstruus) is a medium large parrot. It is about 27 cm long and they are mainly green with a blue head and neck, and red under tail feathers.^[2] It is a resident bird in tropical and subtropical South America and southern Central America, from Costa Rica, Venezuela and Trinidad south to Bolivia andBrazil. It is named for its medium-blue head and neck.

Its habitat is forest and semi-open country, including cultivated areas. It is largely restricted to humid or semi-humid regions, but locally extends into drier habitats, at least along rivers. The blue-headed parrot lays three to five white eggs in a tree cavity.

Blue-headed parrots are noisy birds and make light, high-pitched squeaking sweenk calls. They eat fruit and seeds, and sometimes grain. They roost communally in palm and other trees, and large numbers can be seen at the roost sites at dawn and dusk.

Blue-headed pionus parrots are popular as pets. Compared to other parrot species (Amazons for example) they are very quiet. They are affectionate, but not known for their talking ability.

Description

At La Senda Verde Animal Refuge, Bolivia

The blue-headed parrot is about 28 cm (11 in) long and weighs 245 g. It is mainly green with a blue head, neck and upper breast, red undertail coverts, and some yellowish on the wing coverts. The upper mandible is black with reddish areas on both sides.^[2] They have dark ear patches. In addition to the well-known nominate subspecies found throughout most of the species’ South American range, there are two more localized subspecies: rubrigularis from southern Central America and theChocó has an overall paler plumage and typically a relatively distinct pinkish patch on the throat, and reichenowi from theAtlantic Forest in east Brazil has a paler bill and most of the underparts blue. In all subspecies the male and the female are alike, and juvenile birds have less blue on the head, as well as red or pinkish feathers around the ceres. They moult into their adult plumage at about 8 months of age, but it can take up to two years for the full blue hood to emerge.

Range

In South America, the blue-headed parrot is mainly an Amazonian species, including in the southeast the neighboring Araguaia-Tocantins River system as its eastern limit; a disjunct population lives southeastwards on Brazil’s South Atlantic coast, a coastal strip fromPernambuco in the north to Espírito Santo state in the south, about 1500 km long. In northwest South America the range continues intoCentral American Panama to Costa Rica. It avoids the northern Andes cordillera spine, and a smaller contiguous area of central Venezuela and northern Colombia. A Pacific Ocean coastal strip continues the range, from southern Ecuador, north to Caribbean areas of northwestern Colombia and western Venezuela.

Food and feeding

They eat fruit and seeds, and sometimes grain.

Breeding

The blue-headed parrot nests in tree cavities. The eggs are white and there are usually three to five in a clutch. The female incubates the eggs for about 26 days and the chicks leave the nest about 70 days after hatching.