Yellow-crowned Amazon

How to find it

Focus on the lowlands of the far southern Pacific, near Paso Canoas in Puntarenas, where the one Costa Rican record was made. Think of the habitats listed for the species here, from farmland and mangroves to dry woodland and thorny scrub. Listen for the rolling 'bow-wow' call, which can reveal the bird before you see it. Check any pair or small flock of green parrots for a yellow crown and white eye-ring. Judge every Amazona by head pattern rather than by overall green colour.

How to recognise it

This is a mostly green parrot about 35 to 37 cm long. Look for these marks:

A yellow face and crown.

A pale bill.

Orange eyes.

A white eye-ring.

Red flashes at the wing.

Males and females look alike. Young birds have yellow only on the crown and lack the red in the wing.

Across its whole range, the red on the wing edge, wing patch and tail base is often hard to see on a perched bird, and the red at the tail base is rarely visible in the wild. Bill colour varies by form. The Panama form (panamensis), the one nearest Costa Rica, has a horn-colored bill, while other forms have a dark bill with a gray or reddish spot on the upper mandible.

What it sounds like

Recording: kalvinchan, CC0 1.0, source, read 4 Nov 2026.

Behaviour and diet

Across its range it is usually seen in pairs or small flocks of up to about 30. Larger groups gather at clay licks, where it is known to join other parrot species. At night, outside the breeding season, birds gather in large flocks at roosts, where they are usually quiet.

Where it lives

In Costa Rica it is described as strictly a lowland bird. Habitats listed include dry tropical woodland, thorny scrub, pine savanna, mangroves, farmland and urban areas.

The one Costa Rican record comes from Palma Quemada, near Paso Canoas, in the southern Pacific area by the Panama border. Across its whole range it is also mainly a lowland bird, recorded locally up to about 800 m on the eastern slopes of the Andes. The Panama form ranges from western Panama to northwestern Colombia, which makes it the form nearest Costa Rica.

Similar birds

The AOCR list shows Red-lored Amazon, Yellow-naped Amazon and Yellow-crowned Amazon as separate Costa Rican Amazona parrots, so the head pattern is the key. Red-lored has a red forehead and a blue crown. Yellow-naped has a yellow band across the lower nape and hindneck. Yellow-crowned has its yellow on the crown and forehead. The Yellow-naped is sometimes treated as a subspecies of this parrot, though the AOCR list keeps them apart.

Names and lore in Costa Rica

Costa Rican bird sources list the common Spanish names 'Loro real' and 'lora' for this species, while the AOCR list uses Lora Coroniamarilla. A Costa Rican Spanish name of 'Loro Coroniamarillo' is also given. Other Spanish names include Lora Cabeciamarilla, Lora frentiamarilla and Loro moña amarilla. Its two look-alikes are 'Lora Jupa Roja' (Red-lored) and 'Lora de Nuca Amarilla', also called 'Lora Jupa Amarilla' (Yellow-naped).

Status and conservation

The current online AOCR list marks this species R? (a question mark, not a firm R), so its Costa Rican status appears uncertain.