Red-masked Parakeet.
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URBAN BIRDS OF THE PARKS, GARDENS, AND SOURROUNDING AREAS OF LOJA CITY ECUADOR. BOOK PUBLISHED IN 2009, WITH 44 COMMON SPECIES. ILLUSTRATED BY PABLO ANDRADE. WORK SUPPORTED BY JAN HINLOOPEN.
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Distribution.
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Red-masked Parakeet.- Still locally fairly common (though declining) in canopy and borders of deciduos forest and woodland, agricultural areas, and arid scrub in west, ranging from lowlands up into highlands of Loja; locally also in more humid forest.
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In the Loja City this parakeet is an introduced specie that is present from about 15 years ago, due it has scaped from its cautivity. There are small groups around the city, and they use some cavities of walls for breeding.
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Red-masked Parakeet.
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Description.
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33 – 33.5 cm (13 – 14″)
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Long pointed tail. Bill whitish to dusky ivory; wide orbital ring yellowish white. Mostly bright green with contrasting bright red crown and face (extending behind eye); bend of wing and underwing-coverts red, in some birds thighs also red. Juvenile has little or no red (starts out green) though apparently even youngest birds have some red on underwing coverts. Underside of wings (aside from coverts) and tail yellowish olive. Red-masked Parakeet.
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Habits.
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Red-masked Parakeet. An arboreal parakeet that tends to be gregarious in flocks of up to 50 or even more birds, and may be nomadic or erratics in its appereances. Roosting flights in by gone years could be could be huge, numbering in the thousands. Flocks sometimes fly very high. Feed on a variety of fruits and flowers, foraging with much agility; rarely descends to the ground.
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Voice: Noisy, giving a variety of raspy screeching calls both in flight and while perched, e.g., “screee-scre?ah” or “scrah-scrah-scra-scra.”
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Lately in Macará this parakeet has been recording in a numerous group of about 300 species on the gound feeding.
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Information taken from the book Birds Of Ecuador of Robert Ridgely and Paul Greenfield.
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Red-masked Parakeet.
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