Olive-Throated Parakeet

On the flight home from Jamaica I wondered if I had a photograph of an olive-throated parakeet? I thought I might have one from Rocklands Bird Sanctuary, but while Fritz was talking to me at the time nothing he was saying made any sense as I was focusing on the bird, so I wasn't sure if it was perhaps a yellow-billed parrot or even if I had a decent photo as it was walking about in a tree. It turns out it was the parakeet and that a number of photos I took in Hope Botanical Gardens thinking that they were yellow or black-billed parrots also turned out to be olive-throated parakeets. So ironically, I got more photos of parakeets than parrots! I think part of the issue for me is that I view a parakeet as a tiny bird because of the budgies which we call parakeets in the U.S. which are very small. The olive-throated parakeet is the size of what I think of as a parrot. 

The photos in this series were all taken at Hope Botanical Gardens. The clue that should have alerted me to them being parakeets is the long tail. 

The olive-throated parakeet, also known as the olive-throated conure, is a species of parrot and is found in Jamaica, Mexico and Central America. It has also been introduced to Hispaniola. Several birding authorities have recommended splitting the Jamaican bird as a separate species and calling it the Jamaican parakeet and calling the Mexican and Central American version the Aztec parakeet, also as a separate species. 

Like the yellow-billed and black-billed parrot, it is mostly green and has a fleshy white eye-ring. It has orange eyes, which I can see in at least one of my photos and a brownish throat, although none I saw were as pronounced as the photos I'd seen before going to Jamaica. 

This does have a brownish throat. 

I'm now reading that it nests in termite nests found in trees of at least medium size. As I think back, I think Fritz was talking to me about termite nests at the time I was trying to photograph it.