All species › Parrots › Parrots › Orange-fronted Parakeet
Orange-fronted Parakeet | Eupsittula canicularis
Halvemaanparkiet | Perico frente naranja
The Orange-fronted Parakeet is a small green parakeet with an orange forehead and a blue crown, from western Mexico and Central America. Puerto Rico holds a feral population of escaped cage birds. In its native range it has declined through trapping for trade.
Voice
A scratchy, high kee-ah, a lower keh-keh-keh-keh and a plaintive, drawn-out ehhhh; flocks call a great deal in flight.
Recording: Alán Palacios — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · converted to mono · xeno-canto
Identification
23–25 cm, with a long pointed tail. Forehead and lores are orange, the mid-crown dull blue and the hindcrown green. A ring of bare yellow skin surrounds the eye. Throat and breast are pale olive-brown, the belly yellowish-green. The wings are green with bluish flight feathers; the tail is yellowish below. The bill is pale horn. The sexes are alike; young birds show much less orange on the forehead.
Confusion species
The orange forehead separates it from the other parakeets on Puerto Rico. White-winged Parakeet Brotogeris versicolurus is smaller, with a shorter tail and a yellow-and-white wing panel. Monk Parakeet Myiopsitta monachus has a grey face and breast. Brown-throated Parakeet Eupsittula pertinax, found on Culebra, has a yellowish-brown face without orange forehead or blue crown.
Habitat
On Puerto Rico the lower slopes and edges of El Yunque, secondary forest, parks, gardens and residential areas with fruit trees. It eats seeds, fruit, flowers and nectar. In its native range semi-open country, dry deciduous woodland, savanna and pasture with scattered trees, where birds dig cavities in arboreal termite nests to breed.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation types of the Caribbean.
Range and movements
Puerto Rico: established in the north-east, mainly in the municipalities of Río Grande, Luquillo and Fajardo at the foot of El Yunque, and in San Juan, Trujillo Alto and Caguas; a few records near Ponce and Arecibo. No populations are known from other islands in the region. Native to western Mexico and the Pacific slope of Central America to north-western Costa Rica.
- Resident
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
On Puerto Rico at the foot of El Yunque, along the roads and near the visitor centres in the lower parts of the forest, and in the university botanical garden at Río Piedras. Flocks are mostly found at flowering or fruiting trees.
Conservation status
Globally Vulnerable according to the IUCN, owing to illegal trapping for the cage-bird trade in Mexico and Central America. On Puerto Rico an alien.
Scientific name
Eupsittula canicularis | (Linnaeus, 1758) (GBIF: Aratinga canicularis)
Linnaeus described the species in 1758 as Psittacus canicularis; because it was later moved to another genus, the author and year stand in brackets. The genus Eupsittula was introduced in 1853 by Bonaparte. Eupsittula combines Greek eu 'good, true' with Modern Latin psittacula 'little parrot': 'true parakeet'. canicularis is Latin for 'of the Dog Star' or 'of the dog days' (canicula); why Linnaeus chose it is unclear. The specimen the first description was based on came from northwestern Costa Rica.