When you think about Patagonian birds you wouldn’t immediately think of parrots right? Well, the Austral parakeet (Enicognathus ferrugineus minor) is the most southern parrot in the world! You can find it in the whole southern part of Chile and even at the border between Argentina and Chile. They live manly at sea level but more to the north of their habitat they can even be found at 2000 meters in altitude!
The Austral parakeet is a very social bird and is mostly found in groups of 10 to 15 individuals but can also be found in groups of a 100 or more individuals! They are so social that they are sometimes even found in groups with other species of birds. They are (like most parrots) really romantic, they find their love and spent the rest of their life with them.
Austral parakeets are cavity nesters, this means that they nestel in holes. Most of the times they nestel in an rotten tree or they find an old wood pecker hole, sometimes they even dig a hole in the side of a river bank and they nestel in there. They lay around 4 to 8 eggs and hats around 26 days later. When the young are out of their shells both the parents help to feed them. The young wil leave the nest after 12 to 14 weeks. It takes about 2 years for them to grow mature! And under good conditions they can get 30 years old!
The food exist mostly out of seeds or leaf buts, but when provided they also like to eat berries, fruits and nuts. Sometimes you can find these acrobatic birds eating upside down in a tree!
Although it is not uncommon to see this bird, it is reducing quikly because of the humans. The humans catch them so they can sell them as a pet. Or they try to get rid of them because they do a lot of damage to the grain farm.
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