Birds and Birding's Guide to:

Watching THE CUCKOO-LIKE BIRDS

THE PARROTS

The Vasa Parrots

(Coracopsis) to the number of five species are confined to Madagascar and neighboring islands, while the Black Parrot {Dasyptilus pesqueti), the sole representative of its genus, is found only in New Guinea.

The first, which attains a length of about twenty inches, has the plumage blackish or brownish, while the latter is black throughout except for the abdomen, sides, upper and under tail-coverts, as well as large portions of the wings, which are red. But little is known of their habits in a wild state.

We come now to the True Parakeets, a large, exclusively Old World group of some fifteen genera and one hundred and twenty-five species. The exact definition of this group is difficult, at least from purely external characters, yet in general they may be known by a moderate or very strong bill which is deeper than long and usually red in color, at least in the males, while the cere extends as a band of equal width around the whole base of the bill and is generally partly feathered.

The tail is variable, being sometimes very long and graduated, sometimes short and square or wedge-shaped; the sexes are mostly different. As an example of the striking differences in this latter particular, mention may be made of the Eclectus Parrots (Eclectus) of the Molucca and Papuan islands, in which the males are green and the females mostly bright red, the contrast being so great between them as to make it difficult of credence that they can belong to the same species.

 

 

 

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