Rosy-faced Lovebird

The Rosy-faced Lovebird is proof that a parrot does not need to be big to have personality. Barely longer than a sparrow, this stocky, short-tailed African parrot pairs brilliant grass-green plumage with a rose-pink face and throat, and it lives its whole life at full volume: shrieking in tight, fast-flying flocks, squabbling at waterholes, and huddling shoulder to shoulder with its mate. That devoted pair behavior, two birds pressed together preening each other for long stretches, is exactly what earned lovebirds their name.

In the wild it is a bird of hard country, the arid hills and dry riverbeds of Namibia, southwestern Angola, and the northwestern corner of South Africa, where flocks are rarely far from water. But many people meet this species somewhere far stranger: the suburbs of Phoenix, Arizona. Escaped and released pet birds established a self-sustaining feral population there in the 1980s, and today thousands of lovebirds nest in saguaro cactus cavities and mob backyard feeders across the metro area. Add in decades of popularity as a cage bird, bred in dozens of color mutations, and this little parrot may be the most familiar member of its genus on Earth.

Identification is straightforward where the species occurs: no other small parrot combines a bright green body with a rose-pink face. The Rosy-faced Lovebird is compact and bull-headed, with a short, squared tail, a strongly hooked pale bill, and a vivid blue rump that flashes when the bird flies. Flight is fast and direct on rapid, whirring wingbeats, usually in noisy groups. The pink is deepest on the forehead, softening down through the cheeks, throat, and upper breast. Males and females look alike, so a mixed flock cannot be sorted by plumage. In the Phoenix area, watch also for escaped color-mutation birds (blue, yellowish, or pale forms) mixed into otherwise normal green flocks.

Male vs. female

Males and females are essentially identical in plumage, which is typical of the lovebirds and a genuine problem for anyone trying to pair birds up. Females average very slightly larger and broader-headed, and some keepers report they sit with legs set wider apart, but none of these impressions are reliable for a single bird. Behavior is a better clue: only the female gathers nest material, and she does it in a way no observer forgets, tucking strips of bark, leaves, or paper into her rump feathers to carry them home. In captivity, DNA testing or the sight of an egg is the only certain answer.

Juveniles

Young Rosy-faced Lovebirds look like washed-out adults. The face is a dull, grayish pink rather than clean rose, the green plumage is slightly duller, and the bill shows blackish smudging near the base that adults lack. That dark bill mark is the quickest age clue in a flock. Juveniles molt into full adult color within roughly the first year, and in feral populations family groups often forage together, so a flock at a feeder may show a range of pink intensity from vivid to barely blushing.

Do not expect a song. Like most parrots, the Rosy-faced Lovebird communicates in calls, and it is remarkably loud for a bird that fits in your palm. The main sound is a high, shrill, metallic shriek, often written as skreek or tsee-tseek, given constantly in flight and repeated in rapid bursts when birds are excited or alarmed. Perched flocks keep up a running background of thinner chattering twitters and squeaky notes as they preen and jostle.

The overall effect is piercing rather than musical, and it carries well across open desert. In both Namibia and Phoenix, birders usually hear a lovebird flock long before they see it: a sudden chorus of screeches passing overhead is often the first and only field mark you need. The calls are noticeably higher and sharper than the chirruping of feral Budgerigars and squeakier than most native Arizona birds, so the sound stands out once learned.

The native range runs down the arid southwest of Africa, from southwestern Angola through Namibia, including the edges of the Namib Desert, into the far northwestern Cape region of South Africa. The species favors dry, broken country: rocky hills and escarpments, semi-desert scrub, dry savanna, and belts of trees along seasonal riverbeds. Two things anchor it to a landscape, reliable drinking water and cavities for roosting and nesting, so flocks concentrate near waterholes, cliffs, and stands of large trees. It is mostly sedentary, wandering locally when food or water dictates rather than migrating.

The famous introduced population is in the Phoenix metropolitan area of Arizona, where feral flocks have thrived since the mid-1980s in a climate strikingly similar to home. Phoenix birds roost and nest in saguaro cavities, palm skirts, and building crevices, and they are easiest to find in older suburban neighborhoods with feeders, roughly the Mesa, Tempe, Scottsdale, and central Phoenix areas. Smaller feral groups and escapes turn up in other warm cities worldwide, but Phoenix remains the only large, long-established population outside Africa.

The Rosy-faced Lovebird is a seed specialist with a flexible streak. In its native range it feeds heavily on the seeds of grasses, shrubs, and trees, including acacia, along with berries, buds, flowers, leaf shoots, and other soft plant material as they become available. Flocks forage both on the ground, shuffling through seeding grass, and up in vegetation, using the hooked bill and dexterous feet to handle food. Where crops are grown it will take cultivated grain, and it is sometimes regarded as a minor pest of millet and maize fields.

Living in near-desert, these birds must drink, often several times a day in hot weather, and dozens or even hundreds may gather at a waterhole. In Phoenix the diet shifts to whatever the suburbs offer: seed feeders (sunflower and smaller seeds), palm fruit, cactus fruit and seeds, mesquite, and garden plants. A screeching flock monopolizing a backyard feeder is now a routine Arizona sight.

Rosy-faced Lovebirds are cavity nesters with unusually broad taste in real estate. In Africa they use rock crevices and cliff cracks, old holes in trees, and, most famously, the chambers of the huge communal stick nests built by Sociable Weavers, effectively moving into another species' apartment block. Buildings and nest boxes are also accepted. In Phoenix, cavities in saguaro cactus (often old woodpecker holes), dead palm fronds, and gaps in tile roofs serve the same purpose.

Unlike most parrots, the female actually builds a nest inside the cavity, cutting strips of bark, leaves, and grass and carrying them tucked into her rump feathers, a signature lovebird behavior. She lays roughly 4 to 6 white eggs and incubates them alone for about three weeks while the male feeds her. Chicks fledge at around six weeks and are fed a while longer by both parents. Breeding is timed to rainfall and food in the wild, and established pairs may raise more than one brood in a good year.

This is not a backyard bird for most of the world, so the real question is where to see one. Unless you live in central Arizona, attracting wild Rosy-faced Lovebirds is not an option, but seeing them is easier than for almost any other wild parrot.

• In the Phoenix, Arizona area, feral flocks are reliable year-round in older suburbs of Mesa, Tempe, Scottsdale, and central Phoenix; local parks with mature trees and nearby feeders are the classic spots.
• Phoenix residents can draw them with seed feeders and shallow water; flocks are bold and vocal, so listen for the shrieking calls first.
• In the native range, look in Namibia: Spitzkoppe, Erongo, the Waterberg area, and dry riverbeds and waterholes across the central and northwestern regions, best in early morning when birds come to drink.
• Scan Sociable Weaver nests and rocky cliffs in Namibia and the far northwestern part of South Africa; lovebirds often roost and nest inside weaver colonies.
• Nearly any large zoo or aviary collection holds this species, often in walk-through aviaries, and it remains one of the most common pet parrots worldwide.
• Timing matters little, the species is non-migratory; in desert heat, dawn and late afternoon visits to water offer the best viewing.

• Fischer's Lovebird: An East African lovebird with an orange face, olive-green hood, and a bare white eye-ring that the Rosy-faced lacks
• Yellow-collared Lovebird: Has a blackish-brown head, yellow collar and breast, and a white eye-ring; no pink anywhere
• Budgerigar: A similar-sized green feral parrot but slimmer, with a long pointed tail, barred back and head, and no pink face