They African Grey parrot gets its name from its slate gray feathers. It has a very striking crimson tail and yellow eyes. Its black beak is hooked like most parrots and is extremely powerful.
Food
The diet of the African Grey parrot consists of seeds, nuts, berries, and fruit. Its powerful bill can crush most seeds and nuts.
Habitat
The African Grey parrot is native to West and Central Africa. However, since they are commonly used as pets, they can be found throughout the world. In the wild, they live in rainforests, cultivated land, mangroves, wooded savannas, and gardens.
Predators
Natural predators of the African Grey parrot include a variety of hawks and falcons. Monkeys and other tree-dwelling mammals often steal the parrot’s eggs. As a defensive strategy, a flock of parrots will fall silent and then burst from the treetops while shrieking. The chaos and noise deter most predators.
Social Structure
African Grey parrots are extremely social birds. Thousands of the birds will form a communal nesting area.
Birth & Offspring
A female will lay between 2 and 4 eggs. The male does not tend to the eggs, but provides food for the female instead while she sits on them. Once the chicks are hatched, both parents tend to them.
Senses
The African Grey parrot is widely known for its ability to mimic human voices in captivity. A recording of the parrots in Zaire showed that in the wild, they mimicked nine other birds and one kind of bat. The African Grey parrot is considered to be a highly intelligent bird. There has been some evidence that they can achieve a vocabulary of over 500 words, although there is no evidence that they understand what they are saying.
Lydia King is a huge animal lover and has always been fascinated with learning about the animal kingdom. She enjoys writing about anything animal related from scientific information about rare species to animal references in pop culture.
