Crimson-fronted Parakeet

How to find it

Watch the sky over streets and parks in the Central Valley, where the birds are mostly seen and heard as they zip overhead. Listen first. Feeding birds blend into fruiting trees and are nearly invisible. Long-tailed parakeets in the Central Valley are almost always this species. Nesting birds are easy to find near the CATIE buildings by Turrialba, and flocks in flight are seen and heard almost everywhere in that region, from the Turrialba Volcano slopes down to sea level. Look and listen for flocks over open country, farmland and towns.

How to recognise it

Start with size and tail: this is the largest parakeet in Costa Rica, about 28 cm long and roughly 150 g.

Adults are mostly green, yellower below. They have a red forehead, some red flecks on the head and a red patch on the thigh. The eye is orange, ringed with bare white skin. Males and females look alike.

In flight, check the underwing. It is the only long-tailed parakeet in the country with red on the underside of the wing.

Young birds show little or no red on the forehead and none on the thigh or neck. Their wing linings are more orange than the adults'.

What it sounds like

Recording: Alessandro Franchini, CC BY 4.0, source, read 4 Nov 2026.

Behaviour and diet

Crimson-fronted Parakeets are very sociable. They fly and feed in tightly coordinated flocks, and sometimes hundreds gather at shared night roosts in palms, tall cypress trees or poró (Erythrina) trees. Pairs stay together for life.

In Costa Rica they often nest under bridges, eaves and ceilings of buildings. A study mapped 69 nests on buildings in the Greater Metropolitan Area, mostly in eaves. Pairs are typical, and a third bird is probably a young one flying with its parents.

Where it lives

It prefers open areas with scattered trees, coffee plantations, scrubby regrowth, crops, and parks in towns and cities. In Costa Rica it is found up to about 1,650 m on both the Caribbean and Pacific slopes.

It is a common resident, widespread at low and middle elevations of deforested parts of the Caribbean slope, and increasingly common on the south Pacific slope. It is common in the Central Valley, mostly as a visitor after breeding. It is increasingly regular in Guanacaste and a sporadic visitor to the northern cordilleras.

When to see it

It wanders widely, and more birds are present on the Pacific side of Costa Rica in the dry season. In Costa Rica it nests in the dry season and early wet season, from December to May.

Similar birds

Check the underwing in flight, since red under the wing is unique among Costa Rica's long-tailed parakeets. The long, pointed tail separates it from the smaller, shorter-tailed Orange-chinned Parakeet. The Olive-throated Parakeet is smaller, has no red, and occurs only in the Caribbean lowlands. Around Carara, the Orange-fronted Parakeet has an orange front and duller green plumage. In the southwest, the Brown-throated Parakeet lacks the red front and has an orangey-brown throat. The Sulphur-winged Parakeet, the only parrot of the highlands, can overlap when Crimson-fronted moves lower.

Names and lore in Costa Rica

Costa Ricans use several names for it besides Perico Frentirrojo: Cotorra, Chucuyo, Perico Colilarga and Perico de Palmera.

Status and conservation

It is a common resident endemic (R-END on the AOCR list), rated Least Concern by the IUCN with a large stable population.

Photography tips

Nesting birds near buildings are the easiest to photograph, since fast flocks overhead are mostly heard rather than seen. Feeding birds vanish into fruiting trees, so listen first and then scan.