Red-crowned Parrot

About the Red-crowned Parrot

A flock of Red-crowned Parrots screaming over a Rio Grande Valley neighborhood at dusk is one of the great Texas bird spectacles - dozens of chunky green parrots with crimson foreheads, blue-washed napes, and red wing flashes, wheeling and yelling before pouring into a roost tree.

This is a genuinely wild parrot with a complicated story. Its native range is a small slice of northeastern Mexico, where habitat loss and trapping for the pet trade have made it Endangered in the wild. The thriving Valley flocks - centered on Brownsville, Harlingen, Weslaco, and McAllen - grew from a mix of birds wandering north and escaped captives, and Texas now hosts a meaningful share of the world's population, fully countable and fully protected.

By day the flocks scatter to feed on fruiting and flowering trees through the towns; by evening they reassemble with a racket that can be heard blocks away.

For birders, the evening parrot roost is a Valley rite of passage; for conservationists, these city parrots are an insurance policy for a species in real trouble at home.