ML149679301

Age

Not specified

Sex

Not specified

Observation details

These birds were all small parakeets with slim tails of medium-length. They had conspicuously stout bills on which the culmen curved strongly downward from a deep base to a hooked tip. I further thought the bill would have extended backward on the face to a point just behind the eye and that the bill was not any longer than it was deep at the base. I noted little in the way of a forehead and a smoothly rounded crown on a head that was large relative to the bird’s size. The neck was short and stout, and the relatively plump body had an upright posture with the tail held downward in the plane of the body. The tail was intermediate in length between the body without the head and the head and body combined, and it was slim throughout its length yet also tapering to a finely pointed tip. I did not note in the field the primary projection, but I thought it was relatively long. I also failed to note to what point relative to the tail the slim, tapered wingtips reached, and I have no recollection whatsoever of the legs or feet. These birds were all quite similar, with their differences being subtle and mostly limited to the pattern on the wings. All of these birds were what I generally refer to as “parrot green” in color, which is a pure, bright green that is lighter than lime-green. The head, neck, and underparts in their entirety were the same shade of green, and I thought the back and scapulars were similar in color, if not maybe a slightly darker shade. I did note some medium-gray in the loral region of the White-winged Parakeets that was lacking on the Yellow-chevroned Parakeets, but apart from this, all of these birds had unmarked faces. The Yellow-chevroned Parakeets had the wings a slightly darker shade of green than the body, but the contrast was largely limited to a broad band of deep yellow across the outer greater coverts, but the inner few feathers were green. I further thought the outer primaries were darker and with deep blue fringes along their outer edges that were relatively subtle, but the inner webs of the tertials and secondaries were green. I also thought the tail was uniformly green, at least when seen from above, but I did not study it all that carefully. The White-winged Parakeets were similar in their size, shape, and even their coloration, but on these birds the yellow on the greater coverts was not limited to the outer feathers, but instead, it extended across the inner feathers, so the yellow was more extensive. Further apparent was that the green tertials contrasted with white on what appeared to be either the secondaries or the inner primaries, which when combined with the yellow on the greater coverts resulted in a combined band or region of white-and-yellow that was far more extensive than on the Yellow-chevroned Parakeets. Something that I did not note in the field, but which is evident in my photos is a yellow fringe along the outer edge of the longest tertial. I was also confident that at least some of these birds had fringes of cobalt-blue along the outer edges of the primaries that contrasted as noticeably darker than the rest of the wing. The few intermediate birds that I saw appeared to have the paler coloration on the wings as extensive as on the White-winged Parakeets, but the color on the remiges visible in the closed wing appeared entirely yellow and seemingly without any obvious white. It was difficult to see these birds well in flight, given their rapid wingbeats and the fact that I generally saw them making only short flights; however, I did notice quite a bit of white in the spread wings of some of these birds, these presumably representing the White-winged Parakeets. I noted that at least most of these birds had fleshy-pink bills and dark eyes that appeared to be encircled by a narrow orbital-ring that appears gray in my photos. Although I cannot now remember anything about the feet from the field, my photos show both the legs and toes to be light gray.

Technical information

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