Sun Parakeet

Too stunningly beautiful for its own good

Listen to the radio version here.

Every now and then when I post on Facebook a photo of a bird that is objectively adorable, like a Cuban Tody…

…Bee Hummingbird…

…or any parrot or parakeet, someone will comment, “WANT!!!”

I try hard not to overreact. It’s natural for humans to want lovely things, and many of us have an inborn impulse to nurture, so an adorable little bird can arouse both possessiveness and a yearning to take care of it. But those human impulses to possess and nurture lovely things can end very badly—possessing beautiful birds for their feathers or as living pets directly led to the endangerment and even extinction of whole species. That’s why when people say “WANT!!!,” especially about any wild parrot, I have to control myself from going ballistic.

When I was in Guyana in May, I had the wondrous experience of seeing wild alive Sun Parakeets.

The pet trade and Wikipedia call this species the “sun conure,” but I refuse to use that name because it was the pet trade that decimated wild populations of this exquisite bird in Brazil and northern Guyana. Just between 2005 and 2016, more than 20,000 of them were imported to Singapore alone for domestic and international trade—that’s 8 times more than remain in the wild according to the species entry in Cornell’s Birds of the World, published in 2023, and Wikipedia notes that far, far more are kept in captivity than still exist in the wild. Thanks to that all-too-human tendency to possess beautiful things, Sun Parakeets are now listed as globally endangered.

It makes me sad that the Wikipedia entry for the species is illustrated only with photos of captive birds and has a whole section, “Aviculture,” about keeping them as pets without a single caveat about the moral and legal obligation for pet owners to only purchase a Sun Parakeet (or “sun conure”) if it’s certified as captive-bred. It’s been illegal to import wild Sun Parakeets into the United States since 1992 and into the European Union since 2007, after they received protection under the Convention on the International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES). I am as irritated as distressed by the fact that Wikipedia (which I LOVE, use often, and support financially!) uses the pet trade’s name for this species when the American Ornithologists’ Union, Clement’s Checklist of Birds of the World, and the International Union for Conservation of Nature all call it the Sun Parakeet.

A paper published in 2004 erroneously reported the species as extinct because it had entirely disappeared from so much of its historical range. Today the only remaining stronghold of Sun Parakeets may be in west-central Guyana, where people are working hard to protect it. That’s the area where I got to spend time watching a flock.

Where they still remain in west-central Guyana and northernmost Brazil, Sun Parakeets are birds of forest edges and savanna. They feed on flowers, seeds, nuts, legume pods, and insects, along with both ripe and half-ripe seeds of both fruits and berries.

Not much is known about their nesting or behaviors. Indeed, many of the sections about them in the Birds of the World entry for them have just two words, “Information needed.”

Sun Parakeets, like other wild parrots, are often considered agricultural pests, but in the remote areas where they still exist, that doesn’t have a serious impact on their numbers. It’s that all-too-human impulse to possess that endangers them.

Sun Parakeets are apparently very noisy when flying from one place to another, or when a bird gets separated from its flock, but we were watching a flock feeding and resting, so I didn’t get to hear or record them. I didn’t mind—it was such a visual treat, spending time with this bird I never imagined I’d see in the wild. A couple of them made eye contact with me—just remembering that sets my heart pounding all over again. I’m so grateful to the Guianans who are working hard to save this wonderful bird.

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Tuesday night (October 21 at 7 pm CDT) I’ll be presenting a Zoom program about the many exquisite and cool things I saw in Guyana, from Sun Parakeets and Guianan Cock-of-the-rocks to capybaras and giant anteaters. If you are a subscriber to this blog, free or paid, you’re invited!! I will be recording the program so if you can’t attend, it’ll soon be available on my website.