Animal profile

Thick-billed Parrot

Rhynchopsitta pachyrhyncha

AvesHigh-elevation pine and pine-oak forestEndangered

Field profile

The thick-billed parrot is a green parrot with a red forehead and shoulder and a heavy black bill, living in cold montane pine forest. It feeds mainly on pine seeds extracted from cones. It nests in cavities in large dead pines and moves in flocks between ranges as cone crops vary.

Published field notes

2023-10-12

Thick-billed Parrot

A parrot that lives in snowy pine forest

The thick-billed parrot feeds on pine seeds in the mountains of northern Mexico at elevations where snow lies in winter. It once ranged into Arizona, and a 1980s reintroduction there failed.

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