About Amazona barbadensis (Gmelin, 1788)
The yellow-shouldered amazon, with the scientific name Amazona barbadensis (Gmelin, 1788), is mainly green and approximately 33 cm (around 13 inches) long. It has a whitish forehead and lores, with yellow coloring on the crown, ocular region, and often the ear coverts and chin. Its bare eye-ring is white. Yellow markings appear on the thighs and the bend of the wing, commonly called the shoulder, though both can be hard to see. The throat, cheeks, and belly often have a bluish tinge. Like most members of the genus Amazona, it has broad dark blue tips on the remiges and a red wing-speculum. This species can be distinguished from the very similar orange-winged amazon by the fact that orange-winged amazons lack yellow shoulders and blue coloration around the eyes. Another way to tell it apart from other Amazona species is its somewhat higher pitched vocalizations. A. barbadensis is endemic to northern Venezuela, Bonaire, and other nearby islands. Bonaire may hold fewer than 400 individual birds. On the Venezuelan island of Margarita, it has been extirpated from the heavily commercialized eastern side, a popular tourist destination, and survives only on the Macanao Peninsula. It was also originally native to Aruba, but went locally extinct there by 1947. In January 2024, a population of over two dozen of these birds was reintroduced to Aruba, and this new population is doing well. An introduced population of A. barbadensis lives on Curaçao. Unlike other members of the genus Amazona, it is typically found in arid habitats, such as desert scrub and dry forests. It feeds on fruits, seeds, and flowers, and frequently eats parts of cactus plants. This parrot can survive with very little additional water, getting most of its required moisture from its diet. This is particularly noticeable on La Blanquilla, a small island that has no natural bodies of water. The cacti it often eats are filled with liquid in both their stems and fruits, which keeps the parrots alive in their arid environment.
