Species Description

A dull slate-blue head, their lores area is red and their ear coverts are black edged with whitish feathers. Their chin feathers are edged with a dull punk and their back and wings are a dark brown, each feather with a pale edge. The breast and abdomen are brown with a dull pink or bluish edging. Their under wing coverts are violet-blue and their tail is dark blue with the outer tails feathers having a red base. Their bill is blackish and horn coloured on the sides. The skin around their ophthalmic rings is grey and their iris's brown. Their feet are grey. The immature Dusky Pionus has darker iris's and a greenish-blue head.

The Dusky Parrot nests in tree cavities. The eggs are white and there are usually three or four in a clutch. The female incubates the eggs for about 26 days and the chicks leave the nest about 70 days after hatching.

Habitat

Its natural habitat is subtropical or tropical moist lowland forests.

Distribution

The Dusky Parrot's range is northern South America, and is centered on the Guiana countries, the Guiana Shield, and the northeastern Amazon Basin. It is mostly limited on the west in central-eastern Venezuela by avoiding the Orinoco River itself, but living on its eastern side, from near the Caribbean coast to about 1000 km upstream. To the west a small disjunct group lives west of Lake Maracaibo on the Colombia-Venezuela border.

Other limits to Dusky Parrot's range is northwest Maranh o state Brazil, Baia de Sao Marcos; also in the southeast Amazon Basin, the confluence of the northern flowing Araguaia-Tocantins River. South of Guyana in the western Guianas, the range limit of the Dusky Parrot is in central Roraima state Brazil; the bird is found east of the south flowing Branco River in its lower reaches; the upper reaches are in the contiguous range going into Guyana and Venezuela.