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White-crowned Parrot | Pionus senilis
Witkopmargrietje | Loro corona blanca
The White-crowned Parrot is a small, stocky parrot with a white forehead, a dark blue head and breast and a short tail. The species occurs only in the guide area, from eastern Mexico to western Panama, and is one of the commonest parrots of humid lowlands and foothills. It flies with the deep wingbeat typical of the Pionus parrots.
Voice
A high, shrill, grating kree-kree or kreek-kreek, mainly in flight; perched groups give a soft, squeaky chatter.
Recording: Albert Lastukhin — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · shortened to the first 60 s, mono · xeno-canto
Identification
23–25 cm. Forehead, forecrown and throat are white, the rest of the head, the neck and the breast dark blue with a scaly pattern. Back and belly are green, the wing coverts olive-brown, the undertail coverts red. A bare, pale ring surrounds the eye; the bill is yellowish horn. In flight the blue flight feathers and the deep wingbeat, swinging well below the body, are good features. Young birds have a greener head with less white. Male and female are almost alike.
Confusion species
The White-fronted Amazon Amazona albifrons also has a white forehead, but is larger, with a green head with red around the eye, a longer tail and a stiff, shallow wingbeat. The Blue-headed Parrot Pionus menstruus, in Costa Rica and Panama, has a blue head without white. The Brown-hooded Parrot Pyrilia haematotis is smaller, with a brown head and red underwing coverts.
Habitat
Humid and semi-deciduous lowland and foothill forest, forest edges, secondary forest, the lower fringe of cloud forest, shade coffee and semi-open country with scattered large trees; from sea level to about 1600 m. It eats fruit, seeds and flowers and also visits ripening maize and sorghum. It nests in a tree cavity.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation units of Mexico and Central America.
Range and movements
Only in the guide area. On the Caribbean side from southern Tamaulipas and San Luis Potosí through Veracruz, northern Oaxaca, Tabasco, Chiapas and the southern Yucatán Peninsula to Belize, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua, and on through Costa Rica to western Panama (Bocas del Toro, Chiriquí and Veraguas). On the Pacific side scarcer and local, mainly in Costa Rica. Largely absent from the dry northwest of the Yucatán Peninsula.
- Resident
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
Groups fly calling loudly over forest and open country early in the morning, for example around Palenque in Chiapas, in inland Belize and in the Caribbean lowlands of Costa Rica. Perched in a bare tree, the white forehead is visible from afar.
Conservation status
Not threatened. Locally declining through deforestation and trapping for the cage-bird trade, but still widespread and fairly common, also in semi-open farmland.
Scientific name
Pionus senilis | (Spix, 1824)
Spix described the species in 1824 as Psittacus senilis; because it was later moved to another genus, the author and year stand in brackets. The genus Pionus was introduced in 1832 by Wagler. Pionus is Greek, from piōn, pionos 'fat', after the stocky build. senilis is Latin for 'of an old man', after the white forehead and crown. The specimen the first description was based on came from Veracruz, Mexico.