Conures are a diverse, loosely defined group of small to medium-sized parrots. They belong to several genera within a long-tailed group of the New World parrot subfamily Arinae. The term "conure" is used primarily in bird keeping, though it has appeared in some scientific journals. The American Ornithologists' Union uses the generic term parakeet for all species elsewhere called conure, though Joseph Forshaw, a prominent Australian ornithologist, uses conure.
Description
Conures are either large parakeets or small parrots found in the Western Hemisphere. They are analogous in size and way of life to Afro-Eurasia's rose-ringed parakeets or the Australian parakeets. All living conure species live in Central and South America. The extinct Conuropsis carolinensis, or Carolina parakeet was an exception. Conures are often called the clowns of the parrot world due to their constant attention seeking behavior including hanging upside-down and swaying back and forth or "dancing".
Despite being large for parakeets, conures are lightly built with long tails and small (but strong) beaks. Conure beaks always have a small cere and are usually horn-colored (gray) or black. Most conure species live in flocks of 20 or more birds. Conures often eat grain, and so are treated as agricultural pests in some places.
Conures are as diverse a group as African parrots, so trying to characterize them all is difficult and inaccurate. The category conure is loosely defined because they do not currently constitute a natural, scientific grouping. The term conure is now used mostly in aviculture. Scientists tend to refer to these birds as "parrots" or "parakeets". The sun conure is one of the few species that is regularly called a conure even in scientific texts. (See below under Scientific classification for more details.)
Species
Conures, as the term is used by aviculturists, include only the genera Aratinga, Pyrrhura, Eupsittula and Psittacara, as well as several single-species genera and one two-species genus. Not all members of these genera are called "conures" with equal frequency; some are more often referred to as parakeets. These other genera are listed below: Conuropsis: Carolina parakeet (extinct) Cyanoliseus: Patagonian conure Enicognathus: austral and slender-billed conures Guarouba: golden or Queen Of Bavaria conure Leptosittaca: golden-plumed conure Ognorhynchus: yellow-eared conure Thectocercus: blue-crowned conure
Aratinga
Old Tupi for "bright macaw", (ara – "macaw", tinga "bright") the Aratinga conures generally seem to have a more mischievous personality than the real little macaws or mini-macaws. Popular as pets, the Aratinga conures are generally larger than other conure species with brighter plumage and are generally the noisier, more outgoing, and more demanding of the two primary conure genera. The colorful sun conure and jandaya parakeet are among the species of conures more commonly kept as pets. Many of the Aratinga species can be quite loud, but otherwise can make very good pets for responsible owners. Their lifespans are 20–30 years.
Nanday conures (Aratinga nenday) have a distinctive black head, and wings and tails tipped with dark-blue feathers. They have a light-blue scarf and bright-orange feathers on their legs and around their vents. The maturity of a nanday can be told by the edges of its black hood; if the hood has a ragged edge of brown, then the bird is over a year old. Nandays are often extremely noisy; they are a heavily flock-oriented species, used to making their demands known, calling out warnings for the group, and calling to members of the group that are out of sight. They are also extremely social and intelligent birds, capable of learning tricks, mimicking sounds, and learning a decent vocabulary. At least one report suggests that they are highly adaptable to human encroachment on their territories, but the exact status of the species in the wild is unknown.
Flocks of nanday conures live wild in parts of Florida, notably the west coast, including areas of St. Petersburg and Clearwater. Additionally, flocks of wild Nanday conures live in Siesta Key, Sarasota, Florida. A large flock of nanday conures lives in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood of Los Angeles. They have been in the area for the past several years.