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Rose-ringed Parakeet | Psittacula krameri
Halsbandparkiet | Cotorra de Kramer
The Rose-ringed Parakeet is a slim green parakeet with a long pointed tail, native to sub-Saharan Africa and southern Asia. Outside its native range it is one of the most widespread parrots in the world. In the Caribbean the birds descend from escaped and released cage birds; on Barbados and Jamaica the species has become established and is spreading.
Voice
Loud and penetrating: a repeated, high kee-ak or keeuw, in flight and from a perch. At roosts many birds call together, especially around sunrise and sunset.
Recording: Sam Hambly — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · converted to mono · xeno-canto
Identification
37–43 cm, more than half of it tail. The plumage is bright yellowish green, the tail long and graduated, with bluish central feathers. The bill is deep red with a dark lower mandible, and a thin red ring surrounds the eye. The adult male has a black chin stripe that continues as a narrow black neck ring, with a pink band behind it and a bluish wash on the nape. Females and juveniles lack the ring or show only a faint dark green shadow of it. Colour forms bred in captivity occur among feral birds; yellow and turquoise birds have been reported on Barbados. Flight is fast and direct, often in small flocks.
Confusion species
The red bill and very long pointed tail separate it from the other green parakeets in the region. Olive-throated Parakeet Eupsittula nana on Jamaica and Brown-throated Parakeet Eupsittula pertinax on the ABC Islands are smaller, with a horn-coloured bill, a brownish throat and blue in the flight feathers. Monk Parakeet Myiopsitta monachus has a grey face and breast. Alexandrine Parakeet Psittacula eupatria, another escaped cage bird, is larger, with a heavier bill and a maroon shoulder patch.
Habitat
Towns, villages, parks and gardens, and open country with scattered large trees, fruit trees and fields. It eats seeds, fruit, buds, flowers and nectar; in Jamaica damage to pigeon peas, citrus and maize has been reported. It nests in tree holes, including old woodpecker holes. Outside the breeding season it gathers at communal roosts.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation types of the Caribbean.
Range and movements
Introduced to Barbados in the 1980s; until 1997 there were only a few pairs in St Michael, around Bridgetown, and the species is now common across the whole island. Established in and around Kingston and elsewhere in Jamaica, in flocks of hundreds. Regularly recorded on Puerto Rico, Curaçao, Aruba, Guadeloupe and Martinique, locally in small groups; whether these birds are self-sustaining is not clear everywhere. Only single birds are known from Cuba, the Bahamas, Bonaire, Sint Maarten, Grenada and Trinidad. Native in a narrow belt across sub-Saharan Africa and in southern Asia, from Pakistan to Myanmar and Sri Lanka; feral populations live in Europe, the Middle East and the United States, among other places.
- Resident
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
On Barbados almost everywhere, seen mainly early in the morning and late in the afternoon, when calling flocks fly between feeding sites and roosts. In Jamaica mainly in the urban area of Kingston. Only adult males show the neck ring; tail length and the red bill work for all birds.
Conservation status
Not threatened globally. In the Caribbean an alien. On Barbados and Jamaica the species is increasing. BirdLife Jamaica points to crop damage and to the risk that released cage birds pass diseases on to the native amazons.
Scientific name
Psittacula krameri | (Scopoli, 1769)
Scopoli described the species in 1769 and placed it straight away in the genus where it still stands. The genus Psittacula was introduced in 1800 by Cuvier, GLCFD. Psittacula is Latin, a diminutive of psittacus 'parrot', so 'little parrot'. krameri honours the physician and naturalist Wilhelm Heinrich Kramer (died 1765). The specimen the first description was based on came from Senegal.