Image of the Day: Amazonian Parakeets Live With Humans

By Bruce G. Marcot, Ecology Picture of the Week:

This is a Canary-winged Parakeet (also called White-winged Parakeet, although this race lacks white along the yellow edging of the wing), locally known by its Spanish name Periquito Aliamarillo.  This is a wild bird brought into a tame relation -- that is, turned into a commensal with people.  

Domesticated parrots and parakeets are common in many parts of the world, but it is unusual for this species and in this place.

This parakeet is found along the Amazon River and some of its tributaries.  We are in a very remote corner of the Upper Amazon River Basin in northeastern Bolivia, close to the border with Brazil, in a tiny native village called Porvenir along the Rio Paragua, a distant tributary of the Amazon. 

Canary-winged Parakeets inhabit open forests and savannahs, as well as seasonally flooded forests and river islands.  This one has taken to a forest clearing here in the dense seasonal jungles of the Amazon, and is now a friend of a local villager.   

--Bruce G. Marcot

Image and text © Bruce G. Marcot, Ph.D. Research Wildlife Ecologist,
who produces the Ecology Picture of the Week website.