Description
The Blue-crowned Parakeet is one of the larger birds in the genus Aratinga measuring approximately 37 cm (14.5 inches) in length and weighing between 140 and 190 grams (4.9 - 6.7 ounces). Blue-crowns have many features common to the Aratinga's, including green plumage, long, tapered tails, horn and black-colored beaks, and featherless eye (periophthalmic) rings.
Blue-crowns are born with red coloring around the head, but blue-crowns are predominantly green, with dull blue coloring on the forehead, crown, cheeks, and ears in the nominate, but less blue in other subspecies. It has a ring of white featherless skin around each eye, though this is bright orange-yellow in wild A. acuticaudata neumanni. The breast feathers may also be tinged with blue, though they are more commonly green to yellow-green. Closed wing coloring matches that of the body while extended wings show blue-brown, becoming chestnut on the outer flight feathers. The tail feathers are green on top, maroon to red-brown on the underside, iridescing to bright orange and scarlet under full-spectrum light. Legs are pink-brown with grey-brown claws. The upper mandible is horn-colored, tapering to a needle-sharp, grey-black tip. In the southern and western nominate and subspecies neumanni, the lower mandible is horn-colored in juveniles, fading to grey-black by the bird's second year. The remaining eastern, central and northern subspecies retain the horn-colored lower mandible throughout adulthood.
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