St. Vincent Amazon

While this is not about caiques, it definitely warrants a story.

Rare St. Vincent Parrot Hatched at the Houston Zoo!
Birth the First at the Zoo
Since 1999
On April 25, 1972 the Houston Zoo made history, recording the first hatching in captivity of an endangered St. Vincent Amazon parrot. That first birth was followed by a second hatching in 1999. Today, the Houston Zoo is proud to report that history has repeated itself again and Zoo bird keepers are caring for a St. Vincent Amazon that hatched on May 28, 2008. The chick has been named Vincent after the father of the first St. Vincent born at the Houston Zoo.
“The chick hatched after 25 days of incubation and is being hand raised at the Zoo’s off exhibit Avian Conservation Environment (ACE) building,” said Houston Zoo Bird Department supervisor Chris Holmes. “For the first 28 days Vincent was hand fed every two hours from 5 in the morning until midnight. He went home with me in the evening and came to work with me every morning,” said Holmes. Vincent was transported in a specially made climate controlled carrier.

Found only on the Caribbean island of St. Vincent in the Lesser Antilles, the St. Vincent amazon is officially classified as a vulnerable species by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, the IUCN. The current wild population of St. Vincent’s is estimated at 800 individuals, despite numerous natural hazards and human encroachment into their habitat. Prior to 1898, the parrots were fairly common. However, two natural disasters took a heavy toll on their population after 1898. A devastating hurricane struck the island and was followed by the eruption of the La Soufriere volcano that crowns St. Vincent’s northern landscape. Though the population has increased since these disasters, the slow reproductive rate of this species makes this a long process.

With the end of the breeding season approaching, Vincent’s parents will be on exhibit again at the Houston Zoo by early August.

Trying to be a more concensious blogger..

Normally I feel proud of myself if I manage a post a week. I read blogging for dummies today, and doh, did it make me feel lame! A post a week? They recommend a post a day, or ever other day. Ooops.

So, here is my -every-other-day-turning-over-a-new-leaf-post:

I hope you all got to listen in on The Bird Talks on July 6th. I was the guest speaker, and was fortunate enough to be able to talk caiques for an hour! Complete and utter bliss, I assure you. I was asked back to do another talk in the fall- woohoo. Please kee your eye out for future speaking engagements - the new store 'The Platinum Parrot' has also requested my collaboration in holding a caique seminar and mini event sometime this year. Yay! I am very excited. I love nothing more then talking about these birds.

If you were unable to catch the live podcast on the 6th, please go to our Emily's articles page- www.caiquecrazy.org/emarticles.html a stream of the podcast will be available shortly for you to download.

Green Thigh Caiques

Until recently, there were only a couple of breeders within the United States that bred the green thigh caique (Pionites leucogaster leucogaster ). Green thighs are not available in the pet trade- a hybrid of a green thigh x yellow thigh may pop up every now and then, but the main reason for breeding is to increase the captive population. Ralph Lima was once a well known caique breeder and had a good deal of information regarding different species of white bellied caiques on his website. A few years ago, most unfortunately, he sold out his caique stock and scaled back breeding to only select few species. Nancy Speed of P Patch Parrots was one of the remaining breeders that still was actively breeding green thighs. Most unfortunately it has been reported that Mrs. Speed has sold her collection of caiques and is going into semi retirement. When the stock was sold out and whom to is not known at this time. I hope for the sake of the caique community that the breeder(s) who have invested in the green thighs will start updating caique enthusiasts on breeding status and any other pertinent information. Up until now, little to no information has been revealed on the status of the green thighs within US aviculture. Hopefully things will change!