Olive-throated Parakeet
Where and when to see the Olive-throated Parakeet
DraftOn the Yucatán Peninsula
It lives in dry and humid forest, forest edges, orchards, pastures with trees and gardens across the peninsula. Look for flocks flying over or feeding in fruiting trees; their shrieks usually give them away.
Where it’s reported most
- Kabah Ecological ParkBenito Juárez, Quintana Roo
- Ruta de los CenotesPuerto Morelos, Quintana Roo
- MuyilFelipe Carrillo Puerto, Quintana Roo
- CelestúnCelestún, Yucatán
When
All year
Reported all year.
Reports relative to effort
- January: 58%
- February: 66%
- March: 72%
- April: 80%
- May: 82%
- June: 74%
- July: 81%
- August: 100%
- September: 97%
- October: 81%
- November: 70%
- December: 62%
Data: eBird and other datasets via GBIF.org (CC BY 4.0), 2015–2026 · Base map: Natural Earth
Travels in noisy flocks over forest edges, milpas and villages, feeding on fruit, seeds and flowers. It nests by digging into termite nests in the trees.
- Identification
- A green parakeet with a long, pointed tail, a drab olive-brown throat and breast, a bold whitish ring of bare skin around the eye and a pale bill. The underside of the tail is yellowish, and the wings show some blue in flight.
- Voice
- Sharp, grating shrieks, a quick “krik-krik-krik-krik”, given by flocks as they move through the forest.
What the photo doesn’t show
DraftFigs for the flock
On the mainland a flock can number 50 or more, and wild figs are a large part of what they eat. 1
A home among termites
It nests inside the termite nests that hang in trees, usually digging out the chamber itself. In Tabasco, researchers found fruit bats roosting in a hollow termite nest and suggest a parakeet had probably dug it. 1,2,3
An Aztec parakeet?
The Olive-throated Parakeet proper lives in Jamaica; Mexico’s birds belong to a mainland form that BirdLife and the IUCN treat as a separate species, the Aztec Parakeet. The AOS and the IOC list still keep them as one. It was also moved from the genus Aratinga to Eupsittula around 2014. 1,4,5,6
Out of the cage trade
Before 2008 it was among Mexico’s most trapped parrots, at a rough 7,000 birds a year; one load of 300 caught in Campeche lost 60% to overcrowding. Since 2008 Mexican law bans catching native parrots for sale. 7,8
Sources
- Wikipedia: Olive-throated parakeet (opens in a new tab)
- Animal Diversity Web: Aratinga nana (opens in a new tab)
- Mammalogy Notes 8(1): 277 (opens in a new tab)
- Birds of the World (Cornell Lab): Olive-throated Parakeet (opens in a new tab)
- BirdLife International, Data Zone: Aztec Parakeet (opens in a new tab)
- IOC World Bird List v15.2 (master list) (opens in a new tab)
- Defenders of Wildlife (2007): The Illegal Parrot Trade in Mexico (opens in a new tab)
- DOF, 14/10/2008: Ley General de Vida Silvestre, art. 60 Bis 2 (opens in a new tab)
- DOF, 14/11/2019: NOM-059-SEMARNAT-2010, Anexo III (opens in a new tab)
Map and months: 33,957 records from 2015–2026 from eBird, Inventario de aves y mamíferos en humedales de Laguna de Términos y Pantanos de Centla en Tabasco y Campeche, and others, via GBIF.org (CC BY 4.0), in 0.1° squares (about 10 km). eBird: doi.org/10.15468/aomfnb.
Months: the species’ records ÷ all bird records that month, scaled to the busiest month. It allows for birding effort; it is not the chance of seeing it. A blank square: few or no reports, not necessarily absent.
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