Fran <fbwood at u.washington.edu> asked;

"They were all green, except for their red face and white ring
around their eyes. In the past, I have heard them referred to as
Scarlet-fronted Parakeets, but have only seen them flying and screaming in
the distance. Comparing what I saw to the photo in John Dunning's "South
American Birds, A Photographic Aid to Identification" (1987), I did not
identify any "red spots on the neck or underparts". I wonder if these are
really the Mitred Parakeets which are described as "Green. Only forehead
and face red." The latter come from Peru, Bolivia and Argentina/Chile,
further south along the Andes than the former."

from your description, i would agree with your identification
of these parrots. the mitred conure, Aratinga mitrata, is described
thusly by juniper and parr in their new book _parrots: a guide to
the parrots of the world_ (1998); "forehead brownish-red merging
to bright red on crown, lores and cheeks. scattered red feathers
on neck and bend of wing, sometimes elsewhere on body." the
red that appears elsewhere on the body would be very difficult to
see when the bird is in flight.

the red-fronted (scarlet-fronted) conure, Aratinga wagleri, would
look almost identical to the mitred conure *when in flight* although
the mitred tends to have a larger area of red on its face and the
red color of the mitred generally surrounds the entire eye while
the facial red pattern in the red-fronted conure almost never
entirely surrounds the eyes.

i would guess that it is likely that the conures that you saw were
mitred conures. these birds were imported in large numbers for
a few years for the pet trade. since wild-caught mitred conures
tend to be difficult to work with unless one has a lot of
experience with parrots, these imports ended up being released
to the great out-of-doors in many areas, where they formed large
flocks other escaped or released parrot species.

the red-fronted conure was not imported in such large numbers
apparently since it was a forest species, instead of a scrubland
species (as is the mitred conure), the red-fronted conure was
likely more difficult to capture. at least, that is my guess.

Deborah Wisti-Peterson email:nyneve at u.washington.edu
Department of Zoology, University of Washington, Seattle, Wash, USA
Visit me on the web: http://weber.u.washington.edu/~nyneve/
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