All species › Parrots › African and New World parrots › Green-cheeked Parakeet
Green-cheeked Parakeet | Pyrrhura molinae
Groenwangparkiet | Cotorra de Molina | Tiriba-de-cara-suja
The Green-cheeked Parakeet is the Pyrrhura parakeet of Bolivia: it lives there from dry lowland forest up into the montane forest of the Yungas and the Andean foothills. Groups fly fast and low between the trees, giving shrill calls. The green cheeks, scaly breast and long reddish-brown tail are characteristic.
Voice
Shrill, grating calls such as kreek-kreek, mainly in flight, and softer chattering from groups that are feeding.
Recording: Jacob Wijpkema — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · xeno-canto
Identification
26 cm, slim, with a long, graduated tail. The crown is brown, the cheeks green and the ear region greyish brown. The throat and breast are greyish brown with pale, whitish edges, giving a scaly pattern. There is a reddish-brown patch in the centre of the belly. The back and wings are green, the primaries blue. The tail is reddish brown above, dark reddish below. There is a bare, white ring around the eye. The sexes are alike; juveniles are duller, with less red on the belly.
Confusion species
Crimson-bellied Parakeet Pyrrhura perlata has blue lower cheeks, a large bright red belly and red underwings; it lives only in north-eastern Bolivia. White-eyed Parakeet Psittacara leucophthalmus is larger and plain green, without scaling on the breast. Andean Parakeet Bolborhynchus orbygnesius is smaller, with a short tail, and lives higher in the Andes.
Habitat
Dry and semi-humid forest, Chiquitano dry forest, riparian woodland, Yungas montane forest and their edges, also secondary forest and wooded farmland, from the lowlands up to roughly 2000 m, locally higher. It eats fruit, seeds and flowers in the treetops. It lives in groups of ten to twenty birds. The nest is in a tree cavity.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation units of the Andes and the west coast.
Range and movements
In Bolivia in the east and south: in the lowlands of Beni and Santa Cruz and on the eastern slope of the Andes from Cochabamba and Santa Cruz to Chuquisaca and Tarija. Absent from Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and the Galápagos. Outside the guide area in western Brazil (Mato Grosso and Mato Grosso do Sul) and north-western Argentina.
- Resident
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
Search along forest edges and roads in the Yungas and the dry valleys of Santa Cruz, for example around Samaipata, and in Chiquitano dry forest; groups give themselves away by their shrill calls.
Conservation status
Least Concern. The species also occurs in degraded forest, but is captured locally for the cage-bird trade.
Scientific name
Pyrrhura molinae | (Massena & de Souancé, 1854)
Massena & de Souancé described the species in 1854 as Conurus molinae; because it was later moved to another genus, the author and year stand in brackets. The genus Pyrrhura was introduced in 1856 by Bonaparte. The genus name comes from Greek purrhos, 'flame-coloured', and oura, 'tail'. Named after Juan Ignacio Molina (1740–1829), Chilean Jesuit and naturalist. The specimen the first description was based on came from Bolivia.