At the start of May we got a few days off from work and decided to investigate the City Parrots of Germany. Our first stop was at Schlosspark Biebrich Wiesbaden. (more…)

LA GARITA DE ALAJUELA, Costa Rica—Endangered scarlet macaws born in captivity are reproducing in the wild for the first time on Costa Rica’s southern Pacific coast. (more…)

Landowners in the Burnett Mary region are being encouraged to go birdwatching to help track down a vulnerable native parrot. (more…)

BERKELEY – The population of wild Puerto Rican parrots, among the most endangered birds in the world, has languished for decades, with several dozen remaining birds unable to break through the bottleneck that prevents their numbers from growing. (more…)

South Australian volunteers are delighted with the results of the weekend’s annual count of red-tailed black cockatoos. (more…)

It’s a long way from the Amazon - and a lot colder - but a pair of parrots are thriving in the wild thousands of miles from their natural home.

The orange-winged amazons have set up home in the wall of St Mary’s Church in Cottingham, near Hull, and their noisy squawking is now waking the neighbours up in the morning. (more…)

They are more commonly found in tropical climes. But a brave bunch of parakeets seem to have decided the Edinburgh climate is to their liking and set up home in the city. (more…)

After two years of planning, the Department of Environment and Conservation (DEC) is beginning to implement a controlled burning program that is hoped to both further protect the critically endangered western ground parrot and prevent enormous and destructive fire events in uncleared land. (more…)

Right now, their parents are still searching frantically, calling for them where their nesting area in the Nariva Wetlands used to be. (more…)

There had been few leads in the case of the vanishing parrot of Margate. By now its owner, and Kent Police’s finest, may well have despaired of ever finding the abducted bird. (more…)

If you use cocaine and need a reason to quit—or one to avoid starting in the first place—think conservation. The national parks of Guatemala and other countries have become the preferred haven of drug traffickers who usurp protected areas and burn the forest to serve their own purposes and the demands of their customers, according to Roan McNab, Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) country director for Guatemala. (more…)

“Birds thrive where silence prevails.” So goes the saying. But as if to rewrite this stereotype, thousands of parakeets have made a single ficus tree, bang in the middle of Bangalore’s crowded K R Market, their home… (more…)

Seven kakapo chicks that hatched just over two weeks ago on Whenua Hou (Codfish Island) are to be transferred to special facilities in Nelson to ensure their survival. (more…)

The Department of Conservation is concerned at the discovery of dead kaka in a populated area of Great Barrier Island. (more…)

Conservation efforts have slowed the rate that species are slipping towards extinction, argues a paper published online today in Conservation Biology by scientists from BirdLife International and Cambridge University. Direct conservation action has saved 16 bird species from extinction since 1994 and has substantially slowed the rate of population decline for an additional 33 Critically Endangered bird species. (more…)

Business people at the Preston Industrial Park, near Bunbury, have accused the Western Australian Government of seizing their land.

In a new environmental assessment of the park, the Environmental Protection Authority (EPA) has revealed it intends to keep 980 hectares of the park as a protected reserve for the carnaby black cockatoo. (more…)

The illegal wild bird trade remains rampant in Indonesia, and includes a number of parrot species; populations of some of these are considered vulnerable to future extinction. Enforcement of laws protecting parrots is critical, and such interdiction has recently been stepped up in Central Maluku by officers of BKSDA (Conservation and Natural Resources) and the Department of Forestry. However, the problem then remains as to the disposition of birds captured by government authorities. To begin to address that problem, the Indonesian Parrot Project established the Kembali Bebas Rehabilitation Center on North Seram Island to receive such parrots; the Center is managed by Yayasan Wallacea (director, Ceisar Riupassa). The day-to-day care of the parrots is provided by former bird trappers and consequently, poaching of parrots on this circumscribed part of the island has been virtually eliminated. (more…)

It’s that time of year when native birds and passing traffic come into conflict in western Lithgow — with the feathered friends clearly coming off second best. (more…)

What turns you on? For the kakapo, New Zealand’s giant flightless parrot, the answer may be key to its survival. Only 86 remain in the wild and the birds only breed every three to five years. (more…)

Zoology students and staff from Dundee University are to help in a project which has seen a rare bird reintroduced into the rainforest of Trinidad.

The blue and gold macaw was made extinct on the island about 15 years ago and is still an endangered species. (more…)

The eagerly-awaited arrival of some of New Zealand’s most precious babies has started, with the hatching of five kakapo chicks in the last two weeks. (more…)

Jamaica is home to two endemic parrots, the Yellow and Black-billed Parrots. They live mainly in undisturbed forest areas, such as the Cockpit Country in Trelawny and John Crow Mountains in Portland. Despite illegal activities to capture and sell them, they survive because of the remoteness of much of their habitat. (more…)

On 29th February 2008, ProFauna Indonesia received a tip-off about six Eclectus parrots (Eclectus roratus) being smuggled from Maluku to Sulawesi and advised the forestry department which succeeded in foiling the trafficking attempt. Unfortunately, the government officers did not arrest the perpetrator who claimed that the parrots were gifts, but did seize the birds. (more…)

TOKYO - “Ten”, a six-year-old New World parrot, can solve a puzzle consisting of two entangled chains in less than 30 seconds.

It takes humans about an hour. (more…)

At least three dozen different parrot species are now considered threatened or endangered in their quickly shrinking native tropical and sub-tropical habitats (mostly in South America). As such, the health of wild flocks in the U.S. and other developed countries around the world may well be key to preserving these birds that could otherwise go extinct. (more…)

The endangered Glossy Black-Cockatoo (Calyptorhynchus lathami) population on Kangaroo Island was fortunate to escape with relatively minor damage from the December fires. (more…)

A former officer for Western Australia’s Department of Conservation and Land Management (CALM) has avoided a jail term over his involvement in the illegal transfer of cockatoos to Victoria. (more…)

In a bizarre biological twist, a new study shows that the Hyacinth Macaw depends on its greatest predator, the Toco Toucan, for continued survival. (more…)

SAMBALPUR: About 100 parrots got a taste of freedom on Thursday after forest officials released them from captivity. (more…)

Though they perch far apart on the avian family tree, birds with the ability to learn songs use similar brain structures to sing their tunes. Neurobiologists at Duke University Medical Center now have an explanation for this puzzling likeness. (more…)

Illigal traders could be behind a scam in which bird lovers are duped into buying fake parrots that die days later. (more…)

Birders are observing orange-winged Amazon parrots (Amazona amazonica) in Cottingham, East Yorkshire. (more…)

March 2008. The first private protected area for the critically endangered Fuertes’s Parrot has been established by Fundación ProAves. The species, whose population size is estimated at just 160 individuals, lives only in a small area in the Andes of Colombia that is heavily impacted by deforestation. (more…)

February 2008. The breeding season of the kakapo, New Zealand’s most endangered bird, is off to a great start with at least two fertile eggs having already been laid on Codfish Island and two female birds, previously thought to be too young, also laying eggs. (more…)

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He nibbled it, he tossed it aside, he hung from the top of his cage and looked at it, and then… he ate it. (more…)

In the extinction of the Carolina parakeet is a parable on the relationship of man and nature. (more…)

PROZAC was certainly was not on Dr Doolittle’s list of remedies. But increasing numbers of pets are being given anti-depressants to help them cope with the strain of 21st century life, not least the tendency for many hard-working owners to leave animals on their own for hours.
Morose Macaws and stressed Spaniels are being prescribed mood-enhancing drugs to contain their distressed and anxious behaviour. (more…)

VANCOUVER — Wild Quaker parrot enthusiasts are joining forces March 1 in Yacolt to erect more alternative nesting sites in an effort to keep the colorful birds from building on Clark Public Utilities’ transformers, where they pose a safety hazard. (more…)

A parrot who likes to say ‘bloody hell’ will have more cause to be cheerful now that he’s being fitted with a prosthetic device for his missing leg to help him sleep.

The false leg will be fitted by University of Salford experts after George, an African grey parrot, lost his leg when he was attacked in his aviary by a wild animal 18 months ago.

The poorly parrot has been having trouble sleeping ever since as he had to balance on one leg all night.

As a result, his owner Sheila Weare contacted Dr Glyn Heath of the University’s School of Health Care Professions who runs Lacerta - a company that specialises in fitting prosthetics to animals. (more…)

Back by popular demand, New Zealand’s rare endemic night parrot will be available for viewing by interested public in September-October in southern New Zealand.

Get your map, mark your calendar and dust off your intrepid adventuring cap. From September 8-October 22, 2008, you have a date on New Zealand’s Stewart Island with one of Earth’s most unusual and fabulous creatures. (more…)

Owner climbs on to a roof to catch his beloved bird (more…)

Melbourne’s Arts Centre spire is under attack from a small but persistent flock of sulphur-crested cockatoos, but a group of trained raptors may be the landmark’s saviour. (more…)

Steve Baldwin spotted the first handful of bright green quaker parrots at the grassy margin of an Astroturf soccer field. Excitedly, he pointed them out to the dozen people who had signed up for what he calls a “wild parrot safari”.

“They’re doing what they love to do on a day like this — come down and forage,” Baldwin said, as the birders snapped pictures. “They like to eat grass, clover, weeds. When the sun hits them, they glow, like an emerald color.”

Suddenly something spooked the birds, and they took off, squawking loudly and swooping through the air, to land in a nearby oak tree and on the roof of an apartment building.

“Yeah, they like to roost in that tree,” said Baldwin. “It’s safe from predators.” (more…)

If you want to experience a taste of the tropics here in the Garden State, you must visit the monk parakeet colony in Edgewater. (more…)

Sharon Matola, the “Zoo Lady” of Belize, is an unlikely environmental hero. A one-time Iowa housewife, she trained in jungle survival with the Air Force, rode freights to Florida to study animal behavior and apprenticed to a Romanian tiger tamer. Later she worked as a circus dancer (with tigers) in Mexico. In the early 1980s, she helped film a nature documentary in Belize. At the end of the shoot, she inherited 20 exotic jungle animals, and the Belize Zoo was born.

A quarter-century later, Matola is a widely respected authority on the scarlet macaw and other tropical species. Her zoo is among the most popular tourist attractions in Belize. And she is successfully restoring harpy eagles and other threatened species to the Belize jungle. (more…)

In a world first, Otago film company ELWIN Productions is using new High Definition technology to document a remarkable story following the struggle to bring the world’s rarest wild parrot back from the brink of extinction.

‘Code of the Kakapo’, a co-production between ELWIN Productions in Dunedin and Huntaway Homestead Films in Queenstown, is an intimate look at one of the world’s leading conservation programmes.

This is the third year of filming the Department of Conservation’s elite Kakapo Recovery Team on Codfish Island and ELWIN Productions filmmaker Scott Mouat says that the 90 minute feature-length film will be the first of its kind in both content and technology used. (more…)

Trudging along the snow-covered streets of Hyde Park, you hear chirping and screeching resembling the sound of Styrofoam pieces rubbing together. You look up and see a bright green and blue parakeet. You may think that all the cold and snow has finally made you go mad, but there really are tropical birds that have colonized on the South Side of Chicago. They are called monk parakeets. (more…)

Animal rescuers say a cockatoo rescued from a tree last night had been kept alive for two weeks by his fellow feathered friends.

A rescue team was called to Kilsyth east of Melbourne overnight to rescue the sulphur-crested cockatoo. (more…)

In the face of angry opposition from pet owners, the Pennsylvania Game Commission Tuesday dropped a proposal that would have banned ownership of nanday conures, a popular South American parrot. (more…)

Bird owners are raising a flap over a Pennsylvania Game Commission plan to ban a fowl some now keep as pets. (more…)

The beak of a bird is a tool with many features. It’s a weapon that can put a dent in any enemy or damage the relationship with a friend. It can be a delicate tool for feeding a newly hatched chick or for the precise adjustment of feathers while grooming. With their beaks, birds can pick a lock, crush a walnut or peel the skin off a grape.

Beak shapes and sizes vary widely, depending mostly on the kind of food a certain species eats. The short, straight bill of canaries and other finches is ideal for plucking out seeds, grubs and other edibles. Birds of the parrot family – including budgies, cockatiels and the larger parrots such as macaws – are known as “hookbills,” because of the shape and function of their beaks. (more…)

MINSK, Veterinarians fearing cases of bird flu have destroyed 275 parrots brought into ex-Soviet Belarus illegally by a smuggler on a bicycle, a newspaper reported on Friday.

Officials this week initially said the birds, crammed into cages and abandoned by a man after he was confronted by border guards, were to be handed to pet shops after health checks.

But a lack of facilities at the border with Ukraine ultimately proved their undoing.

“By law, we could have left the parrots in quarantine for up to three days. But tests can only be conducted in Minsk,” said a veterinary service spokesman, quoted by the daily Respublika. (more…)

Two juvenile Kea have been found stapled to a road sign near Arthur’s Pass National Park.

Department Of Conservation ranger Wayne Costello says he is unsure how the native parrots died. They are being sent to Massey University for an autopsy to determine the cause. (more…)

MINSK - Border guards in Belarus said on Wednesday they had foiled an attempt to smuggle 277 parrots into the ex-Soviet state — aboard a bicycle. (more…)

Although now contained, fires in the ecologically significant Fitzgerald River National Park continue to burn. (more…)

Peter Garrett has declared the orange-bellied parrot - the poster bird for green activists opposing development - to be an unlikely beneficiary of Victoria’s $1 billion channel deepening project. (more…)

The NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service has given Castle Hill Country Club permission to kill native corellas which have been damaging its greens. (more…)

THE RSPCA is urging the public to come forward with any information they might have about the shooting deaths of cockatoos at Caringbah. (more…)

Firefighters in the Fitzgerald River National Park on the state’s south will continue back-burning this morning in an effort to contain a blaze before a forecast change in wind direction around midday. (more…)

YACOLT — Several Quaker Parrots who have made an unlikely home in this rural burg were a cheerful bunch on Saturday. (more…)

PARROT experts say an aviary breeding program intended to save one of Australia’s rarest birds has ended in disaster, with the Norfolk Island parakeet teetering on the brink of extinction.

Some of the last surviving parakeets died after being caught for breeding in aviaries on Norfolk Island. While authorities claim the program was successful and that the wild parakeet population had ballooned to more than 200, experts believe the real figure could be fewer than 20.

The Norfolk Island parakeet is found only on the small Pacific island, an Australian territory. (more…)

Pet birds are getting sick on well-meaning Christmas presents.

Veterinary practices are reporting an increase in the number of pet birds with heavy-metal poisoning and other injuries sustained by eating parts of toys. (more…)

March 1-2, 2008 “Parrot Behavior, Training and Enrichment Symposium” Leiden, Netherlands. Hosted by City Parrots this comprehensive two day event for companion parrot owners features international speakers Barbara Heidenreich and Robin Shewokis. (more…)

After eight years of work in Tolima, the International project to save the critically endangered Yellow-eared parakeet (The Ognorhynchus Project) has achieved two unprecedented records: the finding of 52 Yellow-eared Parakeet active nests in April, and of 132 chicks between May and June. This is a major milestone for a bird that was down to less than 100 just 10 years ago. (more…)