Cobalt-winged Parakeet (Brotogeris cyanoptera)

This clay lick (Saladero de Pericos) is located around 800 metres from the creek and is visited later in the day than many of the others. After 10 in the morning they might come. Might – is the word, because for reasons unknown they might stay in the trees, as they did this day.

Hundreds upon hundreds of parakeets each one sounding their familiar high pitched calls – it was extraordinarily noisy. But for some reason the waves of birds came and went time and time again.

Perhaps they saw a bird of prey, or heard a sinister sound down below.

We waited for a couple of hours an then a trickle of parakeets exploded into an avalanche of green and blue.

Why they have selected this particular location I don’t know. The lick is very small and is in part a wet tunnel. The sun never shines down here, so if any of the birds get soaked in the mud/water mixture, they might suffer from hypothermia. It’s locatated is in the middle of the dense jungle and must be hard to navigate to and from. Despite this, the birds take their turn in an orderly manner – there is no “feeding frenzy”.

Here is a better view of sheer cliff above the cave:

A single scarlet-shouldered Parrotlet (Touit huetii) seen nearest.

The colorful one in flight on the upper left is a scarlet-shouldered Parrotlet (Touit huetii)

It sounds like this:

Last updated on 5 May 2022