Brown-throated Parakeet

How to find it

Listen first. It is noisy and calls in flight, so your ears will usually find it before your eyes do. It also calls loudly from perches, so check the bare top branch of a dead tree. Watch low trees and shrubs, and scan for tight flocks flying fast and low. Look in the southwest, from the Panamanian border west to Piedras Blancas National Park. Toward dusk, look for gatherings at shared roosts.

How to recognise it

Look for these marks:

A small green parakeet with a grayish-brown face.

In Costa Rica and Panama, the form called ocularis shows a distinct yellow patch below and behind the eye. Immature birds lack this patch.

A bright green belly with an orange patch in the middle.

A dull olive breast.

Green wings and tail with blue edges and tips.

Across the whole species, the amount of yellow and orange on the face varies a lot between regions, so a field guide from another country may show a different-looking face from the one you meet here.

What it sounds like

Recording: Sydney Gerig, CC BY 4.0, source, read 4 Nov 2026.

Behaviour and diet

This parakeet perches in low trees and shrubs and flies fast and low in tight flocks. It is social, often seen in pairs and in small or medium groups, and large flocks gather at dusk at shared roosts or at concentrated food sources.

Pairs are monogamous. Across the species' range, nests are usually dug into termite nests in trees, and sometimes into tree holes or palms. It is a generalist feeder, and birds move locally in the dry season when food supplies change.

Where it lives

In the southwestern Pacific lowlands of Costa Rica, habitats include savanna, arid scrub, forest from dry to humid, and mangrove. The same habitats continue east to south-central Panama.

Costa Rican records come from low elevations: about 80 m at La Gamba and Golfito, and 14 to 15 m at Palmar Sur, including a rice field. Across its whole range it lives mainly in the lowlands, up to about 1,200 m, and prefers open or semi-open places such as forest edges, parks, gardens, orchards and farmland. Corcovado National Park and Piedras Blancas National Park, both in Puntarenas, are protected areas where it occurs.

Similar birds

It overlaps with the more common Crimson-fronted Parakeet. The Brown-throated lacks the red forehead and has an orangey-brown throat, so check the forehead first. Another brown-headed Costa Rican parrot, the Brown-hooded Parrot, has red on the underwings and a musical, parakeet-like call, so it can also be confused with this bird.

Names and lore in Costa Rica

The name on the Costa Rican list is Perico Gorgicafé. Perico Carasucia is also recorded for Costa Rica, and other Spanish names for the species elsewhere include perico cara sucia and periquito gorgimoreno.

Status and conservation

Listed as resident (R) on the AOCR list, it is common at La Gamba, Golfito and Palmar Sur, and Least Concern globally with a large range and a stable population.