Bird Topics

Pet Lodge USA - Bird Collage

Characteristics of Cockatiels, Cockatoos, Yellow-Collared Macaw, Scarlet Macaw, Blue and Gold Macaw, Peach-Faced Lovebird, Rainbow Lory, Zebra Finch, Eclectus, Sun Conure, Blue-Crowned Conure, Green-Cheeked Conure, Canary, Budgie Parakeet, Blue-Headed Pionus, Blue-Fronted Amazon, and the Congo African Grey (in alphabetical order):

Blue and Gold Macaw

Size: Large, about 33 inches from head to tail. Wing span is approximately three and a half feet. Native Area(s) Include: Central and South America. Color(s): Blue-green head, back, and wings, yellow frontal body plumage. Whitish skin face mask. Personality: Sociable, easy-going, affectionate, and tolerant. Loves to play and chew. Enjoys cuddling, head scratching, and lots of attention. Can be trained to talk. Not a good mimicker. Needs alot of space because of the large size. Can be very loud. Can be aggressive. Tends to pluck. Can inflict serious bites. Not usually appropriate for dorm or apartment. Loves to scream sometimes. General Lifespan Range: 50-80 years.

Blue-Crowned Conure

Size: Large;grow to around 14 inches. Native area(s) Include: Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay, Eastern Bolivia, Mato Grosso. Color(s): Crown of head is blue, body primarily green. Personality: Loving companion;can be very noisy and give high-pitched screeches; intelligent; destructive;high energy level;needs daily human interaction. General Lifespan Range: 25-30 years.

Blue-Fronted Amazon

Size: Average from 13 to 15 inches in length. Native Area(s) Include: Northern Argentina, eastern and northern Bolivia, eastern Brazil, and Paraguay. Color(s): Blue front, yellow head, and yellow nape. Personality: Very outgoing, amazing talkers, will learn words and phrases and use phrases in the appropriate manner with corresponding expression, and great mimickers of expression. Loves to listen to and then mimic music. Can become great singers! General Lifespan Range: 40-80 years.

Blue-Headed Pionus

Size: Medium-large, averaging 11 inches long. Native Area(s) Include: Central and South America, from Costa Rica, Venezuela, and Trinidad south to Bolivia and South to Central Brazil. Color(s): Generally green plumage. Head, neck, and upper breast deep blue. Red base on the feathers of their necks show through. Black patches on their ear coverts. Red undertail. Some yellow on wing coverts. Bill is blackish and has red on the sides. Grey skin around the eyes. Grey legs and feet. Males and females look alike. Personality: Independent. Amuse themselves. Very affectionate. Generally loves an occasional head scratch. Enjoy interacting with peopleif well-socialized. Can be noisy with high-pitched squeaking calls, but overall relatively quiet when compared to other parrot species. Less apt to bite than other parrot types. Easy maintenance, however may become overweight if closely confined. May bond with one person and protect him/her from perceived dangers. Not generally known for their talking ability. General Lifespan Range: 25 years, though some have reached 40.

Budgie Parakeet

Size: Small, 7 inches long. Native Area(s) Include: Australia. Color(s): Naturally green and yellow with black scalloped markings on the nape, wings, and back. There are blue, white, and yellow ones also whcih have resulted from breeding over the years. Personality: Intelligent and social, can be taught to whistle, speak, and play with humans. Though females rarely mimic more than a dozen words, males more easily enhance their vocabularies up to a 100 words. General Lifespan Range: 5-8 years, but sometimes as long as 15-20 years.

Canary

Size: Up to 6 inches in length. Native Area(s): Azores, Canary Islands, and Madeira. Color(s): Come in a variety of colors, from orange, yellow, brown, white, red, and black. Only 1 in 65 wild canaries are naturally red in color. Personality: Most males sing, most females do not. Cheerful. Suitable for beginning bird owners as a canary does not require alot of attention. Not social birds. A single captive canary will be happy. General Lifespan Range: 10 years.

Cockatiel

Size: 12-13 inches in length. Native Area(s) Include: Australia. Color(s): Primarily grey plumage with prominent white flashes on each wing's outer edges. Face of the male is yellow or white, face of the female grey or light grey. Both males and females feature a round orange appearance on both ear areas. Color mutations include Cinnamon, Whitefaced, Albino, Yellowcheeked, Pearled, Grey, and Pied. Personality: Some are sociable but others may be shy and go to the back of the cage if someone unknown appears. Can become tame very quickly if handled often. Males are most capable of mimicking words and being more vocal. However, females ar more social. May sometimes make piercing whistles and noises. General Lifespan Range: 15-20 years, though sometimes as short as 10-15 years and as long as 30 years.

Cockatoo

Size: 12 to 20 inches. The Moluccan is the largest of the Cockatoos. Native Area(s) Include: Australia, Indonesia. Color(s): By nature pink or white, but there are 21 species of Cockatoo and colors vary. Personality: Have instinctive behavior. Very affectionate companion birds if raised properly. Love to cuddle, show off, bob their heads, and spread their wings. Love to play and chew things. May learn to repeat some sounds and words, but are not known for having a large vocabulary. Can be loud and they love to scream mostly in the morning and the evening. May develop behavior problems if not given enough attention to satisfy. General Lifespan Range: Up to 100 years.

Congo African Grey

Size: The two subspecies of the African Grey Parrot are the Congo African Grey and the Timneh African Grey. The Congo African Grey is about 12 inches long and slightly larger than the Timneh. Color(s): Grey body with bright red tail feathers. Personality: Excellent mimics and generally thought to be the best mimics of the all parrots, most are excellent talkers, can repeat sounds such as a doorbell or telephone;extremely intelligent by knowing how to put words together in the right order instead of simply repeating them. General Lifespan Range: 50+ years.

Eclectus

Size: 14 inches in length. Native Area(s) Include: Solomon Islands, Sumba, New Guinea and nearby islands, Maluki Islands, and northeastern Australia. Color(s): Though can vary, the male has a mostly bright green plumage with a yellow tinge on his head, blue primaries and red flanks, tail edged wih a narrow creamy yellow band, tail feathers of green and blue;female has mostly bright red and purple/blue plumage, tail edged with orange-yellow on top with more orange underneath. Personality: Generally a calm bird, one of the more popular birds kept in captivity, can be difficult to hand feed, moderate to high noise level, excellent talking ability. General Lifespan Range: 50 years.

Green-Cheeked Conure

Size: 10 inches in length. Native Area(s) Include: Mato Grosso, Brazil, Bolivia, and Argentina. Color(s): Primarily green with a grey breast, dark head, blue flight feathers, and maroon tail. Personality: Have a good temperament generally. Loyal and will bond with their owners. Like lots of attention. Buy a couple if you don't have several hours a day to spend with your bird. Boredom may lead to plucking feathers, screaming, biting, and getting into mischief. General Lifespan Range: 35-40 years.

Peach-Faced Lovebird

Size: 5 to 7 inches in length. Native Area(s) Include: Southern Africa. Color(s): Peach-colored face and cheeks. Green body by nature, but captive breeding has created an abundance of body and wing color mutations. Personality: Territorial. If housing multiple lovebirds it is best to introduce them simultaneously to their habitat. Those housed awhile should be not re-introduced to a habitat with other lovebirds, but should be housed separately. A pair will bond to each other instead of to the owner. Inquisitive and intelligent. Enjoys the company of a human. Eats throughout the day. Takes frequent baths. May be a loud and constant chirper. General Lifespan Range: 4 to 12 years.

Rainbow Lory

Size: Medium, 10 to 12 inches in length. Native Area(s) Include: Australia, Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, and New Caledonia. Color(s): Deep blue head, greenish-yellow nuchal collar, deep green wings, back, and tail. Red chest with blue and black barring. Deep green belly, yellow with deep green barring on the thighs and rump. Personality: Affectionate, curious, clowny, entertaining. Known for playfulness as everything to them is a toy. May wrap themselves in a blanket for naptime. May even sleep on their backs. Does not get along with other species. Territorial, and a pair must be kept from the beginning in the same habitat. General Lifespan Range: 20 years.

Scarlet Macaw

Size: Large, 32 inches long. Native Area(s) Include: Mexico, Honduras, and the island of Coiba. Color(s): Mostly scarlet plumage,, light blue tail-covert feathers and rump. Yellow greater upperwing coverts, dark blue upper sides of the tail feathers, dark red wing undersides and tail flight feathers. Some have green in the wings, with yet other showing a variation of widths in their yellow ring band. Around the eye to the bill is bare white skin. Mostly pale horn in color is the upper mandible and the lower is black. Personality: Has loud voice and can be quite vocal sometimes. Occasionally makes loud, throaty, low-pitched sqawks and screams. Friendly and social to people it knew since very young. Should train before full height is attained, because afterward it may prove more difficult to do so. General Lifespan Range: 40 to 50 years, though some have been known to live up to 75 years in captivity.

Sun Conure

Size: 12 inches in length. Native Area(s) Include: Northeastern South America. Color(s): Head and chest are mixture of orange and yellow, wings are green and yellow. Tail feathers are a mixture of green and blue feathers. Deep blue flight feathers. Black beaks. White border around the eyes. Personality: Inquisitive and clownish. Charmers. Love to interact with humans. Love to be where the action is. Known for crawlling into their owner's shirt to go to sleep. Tend to sleep on their backs. Loud. Has a piercing call. Known to make noise if anyone approaches the house. May scream for attention and make it a habit. General Lifespan Range: 25 to 30 years.

Yellow-Collared Macaw

Size: 15 inches in length. Native Area(s) Include: Paraguay, Brazil, Bolivia, and Argentina. Color(s): Green body, yellow bands around the back of the neck. Large white eye patches, bluish-black forehead, maroon tail with a bright blue hue on the tip. Personality: Mischievous, intelligent, resourceful. Affectionate. Seeks and needs alot of attention. Known to be escape artists, so make sure cage is secure. General Lifespan Range: 50 years.

Zebra Finch

Size: Small, up to about 4 inches long. Native Area(s) Include: Central Australia, Indonesia, and Timor-Leste. Color(s): Males have black and white bars on the throat and breast, with orange cheek patches and brown on the sides of the body. Males and females have red-orange beaks. There is a large variety of color mutations available now. Personality: Sociable. Eat frequently throughout the day. May become plump. Make sounds of chirps and peeps. Males are boisterous, loud singers. They'll make a sound of a few small beeps and then go into a rhythmic song. Females lack the ability to sing. Should be kept in pairs -- both females if not breeding. General Lifespan Range: 5 to 15 years.