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Ring Necked Parakeets/How to age?/No Opus page (1 Viewer)

gradders52

Well-known member
As these Ring Necked Parakeets become more common across the UK in particular (but could be anywhere) – anyone know how to age and sex the birds? Adults clearly have a black bib, a dark ring neck, with a pink ring too and a long tail. But what about juveniles how old and how do you age them?

These two images illustrate
1 Adult (furthest away) with another bird, which I assume is sub adult (1yr old?), see length of tail, no bib or ring (on site and in other images).
2 Bird with 'no tail' to speak of. This would suggest recent, i.e this year bird, juvenile?

I wondered if we have adult, sub adult(1yr old?) and juvenile here. Or is all this nonsense? How does one distinguish, what features? Are there other factors, beak colour?

Possible for anyone to enlighten me please.

Possibly put a page on Opus or was I simply looking in the wrong place?

Cheers
g
 

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THANKS Delia.
I see the page has been updated, which helps.
It seems to suggest only the male has a black neck-ring and pink nape-band.
1 Thereby how does one distinguish the adult female from the juvenile male (or female)?
2 How old is the sub adult male before it obtains the neck-ring and nape band, six months, one year, two years... do we know?

Many Thanks
g
 
Anyone know?

1 Thereby how does one distinguish the adult female from the juvenile male (or female)?
2 How old is the sub adult male before it obtains the neck-ring and nape band, six months, one year, two years... do we know?
Ta.
g
 
cut & paste from BWPi piece on R N Parakeets, hope this answers your questions


'Adult Male
Forehead, lores, ear-coverts, and cheeks bright yellowish-green with faint black line from nostril to front of eye; crown, nape, and back of ear-coverts and hindcheeks bright yellowish-green, extensively tinged sky-blue or pale lavender-blue on feather-tips, forming solid pale blue patch on hindcrown and nape narrowing to lower hind-cheeks when plumage fresh, but much yellow-green of feather-bases exposed and blue almost absent when plumage worn. Band bordering base of lower mandible and along bare chin black, widening on black throat. Narrow collar round neck pink-red on hindneck, black bordered below by pink-red on sides of neck, black on foreneck where widening to throat. Upperparts including upper wing-coverts bright green, brightest on back and rump, slightly bluish just below pink-red band of hindneck, on tertial coverts, and on outer webs and tips of median and greater coverts; green of upperparts duller when plumage worn. Under-parts including axillaries and lesser and median under wing-coverts yellowish-green, less bright and shiny than on face and cheeks, slightly tinged grey on chest, sides of breast, and upper flanks, more greenish-yellow on lower flanks, thighs, and under tail-coverts. Central pair of tail-feathers (t1) pale bluish-green, grading to pale turquoise on distal half or more; t2 pale bluish-green on outer web, yellowish-green on inner, t3–t6 bright yellowish-green on outer web, pale greenish-yellow on inner; all tail-feathers with contrasting horn-black shaft, narrow pale yellow fringe at tip, and with pale yellow undersurface with slight dusky distal suffusion. Flight-feathers, greater upper primary coverts, and bastard wing dark green, contrasting with paler green upper wing-coverts; shafts black, inner webs of flight-feathers broadly bordered dull black; inner web of p10 largely black and outer web dark bluish-green to cerulean-blue; tips of outer webs of secondaries, inner webs of primaries, and outer webs of (p7–)p8–p9(–p10) narrowly edged pale yellow or yellowish-white. Undersurface of primaries and greater under primary coverts greyish-black, contrasting with yellowish-green of remainder of underwing.

Adult Female
Like adult ♂, but entire head and neck green, brightest and with faint dark loral line on face, slightly duller and similar to remainder of upperparts on crown, nape, and neck; some greenish-yellow of feather-bases sometimes exposed by wear. No blue on head or black on throat and no pink-red and black collar but usually a shiny emerald-green collar just visible and occasionally a faint dark green-grey bar on sides of neck, mainly caused by wear.

Nestling
Entirely naked, except for a few white hairs present at hatching, soon disappearing (Harrison 1975).

Juvenile
Like adult ♀, but green of head and body with slightly more yellowish tinge; tips of flight-feathers and greater upper primary coverts and inner webs of primaries narrowly edged yellow, these edges wider than those present in fresh adult, up to 1 mm; tail shorter than adult.

First Adult
Like adult ♀ and difficult to distinguish, but usually retains some scattered worn juvenile flight-feathers with traces of rather wide yellow edges; tail on average shorter than in adult. Adult head markings in ♂ acquired after complete first post-breeding moult in 3rd calendar year.

Bare parts
Adult
Iris pale yellow or yellowish-white. Bare skin round eye pink-yellow to orange. In borealis, bill coral-red, lower mandible sometimes partly marked black; in other races, lower mandible entirely black; tip of upper mandible black in krameri and slightly so in parvirostris. Leg and foot greenish-grey or greenish-slate.

Nestling
Iris bluish. Bill yellowish, changing to red before fledging. Bare skin pinkish with some faint blue patches. Leg and foot pink or whitish-pink.

Juvenile
Iris greyish-white. Bill coral-pink with pale tip. Leg and foot grey. (Ali and Ripley 1969; Harrison 1975; Forshaw 1978; BMNH.)'
 
Keith
You are a star! THANK YOU!
I knew someone would know.
Excuse my further ignorance, but what is 'BWPi'?
Once again, many thanks for the piece... explains a great deal... I fear we only have one male... and wonder how long this local family will survive without another male, new blood, turning up.
Cheers
g
WHOOPS, more than a star... Opus editor!
Thank ye boss, yesseersir, thank e kindly.
 
BWPi is the computer version of the 'Birds of the Western Palearctic', it's got the text from all 9 volumes of the original, plus text, maps and illustrations from both volumes of the Concise BWP, along with hours of video files and songs and calls.
All properly explained HERE
I've had mine from version 1 and it's a handy tool, very few days go by without me having a dip into it.
 
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