YELLOW HEAD CAICCO
It measures about 23 cm, but seems smaller due to its tapered and light structure: it has a yellow-orange cap that covers the head and neck, the top of the head and the nape are intense orange, while the cheeks and neck are yellow, of the same yellow as the undertail. The chest and the belly are white, the trousers, the wings and the green back. It has a pinkish peri ophthalmic ring, an orange iris, a pinkish beak and gray legs. The immature subjects have gray beaks, brownish marks on the head and the colors are generally paler.
Its range is located in the southern part of the Amazon basin and includes: Brazil (between the Amazon River and Mato Grosso), north-western Bolivia, eastern Peru and eastern Ecuador. Its ideal habitat is made up of forests along watercourses, but it also adapts to secondary forests. In nature it moves in pairs, small family groups or small flocks that prefer to stand on the tops of the tallest trees. It nests in the hollow trees, very high, up to 30 meters high. The female normally lays 2 eggs which are incubated for 23 days. The little ones fly around the eighth week from the hatching.
BLACK HEAD CAICCO
Parrot of medium-small size, whose proportions recall the most sized psittacines thanks to the large head and the beak conformation. The vertex, as the common name says, is completely black. Cheeks, nape, neck and throat are characterized by a spectacular clear golden-yellow band, darker and orange in the back, lighter in the front part, tending to lemon yellow. Between black and yellow, near the beginning of the jaw, a green strip separates the two colors until it touches the ophthalmic region. The chest and abdomen are white, the undertail and thighs are yellow-gold again. This extraordinary and very elegant multicolored livery is set under the back and completely green wings, shades that lighten on the steers of the rather short tail. The shade of green on the primary remiges is darker. Thanks to this unusual color, many call the caique gullet “seven-colored parrot”. The iris is dark orange, the beak and legs are black. It is a fairly widespread parrot, with a quiet and gregarious character, with arboreal habits, so much so that it shows off an excellent ability as a climber, thanks to oversized legs and beak. It tends to live in small flocks of twenty or thirty specimens. He loves to live in open glades or at the edge of primary and secondary forests, often even near the coast, without ever going beyond 1000/1100 meters of altitude. At night the group gathers on a dormitory tree. He is not a strong flier, he tends to tire quickly. The noise is not excessive, even if at times it emits cries and very high whistles. It is a widespread bird in captivity, which bears very well, and appreciated for its qualities of sympathy and availability.
One of the nicknames that is attributed to this psittacide is that of “dancer parrot” for the playfulness and the ease with which it starts to jump and dance in the presence of a rhythm. In conditions of trust and tranquility, the black-headed gulet often behaves like a real clown and cannot fail to tear laughter at every performance. He is not gifted as an imitator of the human voice, but he is able to whistle in a modulated way, reproducing simple melodies. It is an active and destructive bird and needs many objects on which to exercise its beak destroying them. Given its continuous activity it must be housed in spacious aviaries (at least 4 meters long) or, in a domestic context, in a spacious cage from which it has the possibility of going out.