Parrots Of the rain forestOf the more than 10,000 species of birds in the world, the majority are found in the tropics with 50 percent of all bird species found in the Amazon Basin and Indonesia.
One of the most recognizable bird groups in the world is the parrots (about 315 species) with their bright colors, distinctive loud calls, powerful beaks, and feet with two toes facing forward and two facing rearward. Parrots are most prominent in the rainforest, although they are found in countless other tropical habitats around the world. Parrots feed on seeds, fruits, grass, leaves, and plant shoots and use their strong beaks to crack hard shells, grind their food, and as a third limb for climbing. Parrots come in a range of sizes from the 39-inch (1 m), three-pound (1.4 kg) hyacinthine macaw of Brazil to the pygmy parrot which rarely reaches three and a half inches (9 cm) and weighs only about half an ounce (15 g). Besides size variation, some parrots have very unusual habits,like the Southeast Asian hanging parrots which sleep hanging upside down like bats. Many parrots live in flocks or in life-long partnerships with a single mate. When one member of the pair dies, the other mate either lives out its life in lonely solitude or joins another pair to make a triple. Many parrots show marked sexual dimorphism with males usually more strikingly colored than females.
Parrots Have a role in The Rain ForestThe way I see the job of parrots, particularly in the rain forest where the food is high in the canopy, parrots eat seeds, fruit, a lot of things. But parrots are sloppy eaters. They will pick up a piece of fruit, take a bite and let the rest fall down below. One day it hit me, they are throwing it down to the ones below. In the Amazon on the ground it is dark. It gets lighter as you go up through the trees and much of the activity is in the canopy. The parrot food also sticks at different levels, so that is their job to pick for everyone below them. I don’t know what the job of parrots in the desert might be.
