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Red-crowned Amazon | Amazona viridigenalis
Groenwangamazone | Amazona tamaulipeca
The Red-crowned Amazon is an amazon parrot from north-eastern Mexico with a red forehead and crown. In its native range it is threatened by forest loss and capture for the cage-bird trade, but feral populations live in California and Florida, among other places. In the Caribbean it is an introduced species, with a small group in southern Puerto Rico.
Voice
Loud, grating and screeching calls, such as a repeated kraa-kraa, mixed with higher whistled notes. Noisiest when flocks fly between roost and feeding area in the morning and evening.
Recording: Richard E. Webster — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · shortened to the first 60 s, mono · xeno-canto
Identification
28–33 cm, stocky, with a short rounded tail. Green, with a bright red forehead and forecrown. A dark blue stripe runs from behind the eye to the rear crown. The cheeks are bright pale green. There is a red speculum in the secondaries, and the tail has a yellow-green terminal band. White eye-ring, pale horn bill. The sexes are alike; juveniles have less red on the head and a grey iris.
Confusion species
Puerto Rican Amazon Amazona vittata has only a narrow red band on the forehead, no pale green cheeks and no blue stripe behind the eye, and lives in the montane forests of El Yunque and Río Abajo, not on the dry south coast. Yellow-crowned Amazon A. ochrocephala has yellow on forehead and crown, Turquoise-fronted Amazon A. aestiva blue and yellow on the face and Orange-winged Amazon A. amazonica blue and yellow on the head and orange in the wing.
Habitat
On Puerto Rico dry coastal forest, mangrove edges, groves and gardens around Aguirre and the yards and parks of the coastal towns. In Mexico lowland forest, gallery forest and forest edges. It eats seeds, fruit, nuts, flowers and buds. It nests in tree holes and roosts communally.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation types of the Caribbean.
Range and movements
On Puerto Rico a small feral population in the south, almost entirely in Salinas municipality, around Aguirre and Bahía de Jobos, with a few records from neighbouring Guayama. After a peak of just over fifty birds, counts showed a steep decline, but the species is still reported there in recent years. Single records elsewhere on the island probably refer to escaped cage birds. Native only to north-eastern Mexico and possibly the extreme south of Texas; feral populations in California, Florida and on Oahu.
- Resident
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
In Salinas, around the former Aguirre sugar complex and along the woods at Bahía de Jobos, early in the morning or late in the afternoon, when the birds fly calling between roost and feeding sites.
Conservation status
Endangered globally (EN). In Mexico most of its habitat has been cleared and many birds have been taken for the trade; the wild population was estimated in the 1990s at 2,000–4,300 mature birds and is declining. The Los Angeles area alone holds an estimated 3,000 feral birds. On Puerto Rico an introduced species with a small population.
Scientific name
Amazona viridigenalis | (Cassin, 1853)
Cassin described the species in 1853 as Chrysotis viridigenalis; because it was later moved to another genus, the author and year stand in brackets. The genus Amazona was introduced in 1830 by Lesson. Amazona comes from 'Amazone', the French name Buffon gave to various tropical American parrots because they came from the Amazon region. viridigenalis is Latin, from viridis 'green' and gena 'cheek', after the bright green cheeks. The specimen the first description was based on came from northeastern Mexico (originally given in error as South America).