Parakeets in Fuerteventura

Many birds are belssed eith an array of beautiful, vivid colours but notn can really match those of the parrot family.

An article by Ted Park, with The Voice Fuerteventura 

This month I decided to take a trip down to the Bird sanctuary in Morrow Jable as I have not been there for a while, but to my disappointment we found it was closed and has been for some time. So instead, I decided to take the camera out and have a walkabout down the front, to see if I could find any other brids of interest to include in this section for the New Year. I was not dissapointed. 

Disappointment to Happiness

Although the day started rather badly, this soon changed when I saw a large number of parakeets, happiy sitting in a tree next the closed sanctuary. To my suprise, there were at least thirty of them, and what a great sight it was. Whether these birds are escapees or not I don’t know, but it was wonderful to see them and listen to their calls.

Long Tail

The Parakeet belongs to the Parrot family and the word Parakeet means “long tail.” They are small to medium sized parrots, with long tapered tail feathers and bright green upperparts. The forehead and breast are pale grey in colour, with a darker scalloping. The rest of the underparts are a very light green to yellow and the bill is orange.

Their voice is a loud throaty “quark” and these colourful and very graceful birds are full of energy. As they are flock birds they are very sociable with each other and also often with people too. Probably the best known Parakeet is the Budgerigar, however, there are many different types. 

Breeding and group living

Parakeets do breed better when they live in a group environment as having other parakeets around does seem to encourage them to find mates and reproduce, but they will also happily still breed in individual pairs. They will build a nest in a tree, which is normally made of sticks, and the female will lay about six to eight eggs which have an incubation period of approximately eighteen days.

I photographed these two during my day in Morro Jable.