White-winged Parakeets 

Yellow-winged Parakeets, Amazon River, Peru

On the Wildside Nature Tours Amazon River Boat Adventure, we went out on a misty morning to visit a permanent island in the Amazon upriver from Iquitos to see the many thousands of White-winged Parakeets (Canary Winged in non-USA field guides) that roost there for the night. We were a bit late getting off, and as we approached the island, the sky was full of flock after flock of Parakeets, each several hundred birds, lifting off to go foraging in the local rainforest. I was afraid they might be all gone by the time we got around to the other side of the island where they prefer to roost…but there were still thousands there when we arrived…bending down the reeds with their weight. As you see from the image, what you see when you look at the Parakeets is a yellow-winged bird. The yellow is edged with white…visible in the open wing…hence its US name…but there is no doubt that Canary Winged is more accurate and more descriptive. 

One of the reasons we were late to the Parakeets was that we stopped on the other, near, side of the island where equal numbers of Yellow-rumped Caciques roost. Two for one. 🙂 We also hundreds of Fork-tailed Flycatchers and one lone Ringed Kingfisher on the island.

Sony Rx10iii at 600mm equivalent. Program mode. Processed and cropped in Polarr on my iPad Pro. 

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