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Peach-fronted Parakeet | Eupsittula aurea
Goudvoorhoofdparkiet | Aratinga frentidorada | Periquito-rei
The Peach-fronted Parakeet is a medium-sized, long-tailed parakeet of savannas and open dry woodland in eastern Bolivia and the far south-east of Peru. Pairs and small flocks feed in trees and on the ground. The orange forehead and orange eye-ring stand out from a distance.
Voice
Shrill, rolling calls in flight, such as kree-kree-kree; softer chattering while feeding.
Recording: JAYRSON ARAUJO DE OLIVEIRA — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · xeno-canto
Identification
25–27 cm, with a long, pointed tail and a black bill. The plumage is green. The forehead and eye-ring are orange, and the crown is bluish. The throat and breast are olive-brown, and the belly is yellowish green. The primaries are bluish. The sexes are alike. Young birds have less orange on the forehead.
Confusion species
Dusky-headed Parakeet Aratinga weddellii has a greyish-brown head without orange, a bare white eye-ring and lives mainly along rivers and at forest edges in the Amazonian lowlands. Blue-crowned Parakeet Thectocercus acuticaudatus is larger, with a blue head, a pale bill and a reddish underside to the tail. White-eyed Parakeet Psittacara leucophthalmus is larger and all green, with red flecks on the head and neck, red and yellow in the underwing and a pale bill.
Habitat
Savanna with forest islands, cerrado, open dry woodland, gallery forest and farmland with scattered trees, mainly in the lowlands up to roughly 1000 m. It eats seeds, fruit, flowers and insect larvae, in trees and on the ground. It usually nests in a cavity the pair excavates in an arboreal termite nest.
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 lowlands of Pando, Beni, La Paz and Santa Cruz. In Peru only in the far south-east, in the savannas of the Pampas del Heath in Madre de Dios. Absent from Colombia, Ecuador and the Galápagos. Outside the guide area in Suriname, much of Brazil, Paraguay and northern Argentina.
- Resident
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
In the savannas of the Beni, for example around Trinidad, and in the cerrado of Santa Cruz. Look for pairs flying low over open country and for the orange forehead.
Conservation status
Least Concern. The species is common in a large range and tolerates open farmland; locally birds are captured for the cage-bird trade.
Scientific name
Eupsittula aurea | (Gmelin, 1788) (GBIF: Aratinga aurea)
Gmelin described the species in 1788 as Psittacus aureus; because it was later moved to another genus, the author and year stand in brackets. The genus Eupsittula was introduced in 1853 by Bonaparte. The genus name comes from Greek eu, 'good, fine', and Latin psittula, a diminutive of psittacus, 'parrot': 'true little parrot'. The species name is Latin aureus, 'golden', for the orange-yellow forehead. The specimen the first description was based on came from Bahia, Brazil.