Red-shouldered Macaw - BirdForum Opus

Photo by Lucas Leuzinge
Fazenda Barranco Alto, Pantanal, Brazil

Includes: Southern Red-shouldered Macaw or Noble Macaw

Identification

30 cm (8 -9 Inches). The smallest Macaw. Almost entirely green with a red "shoulder" and restricted exposed facial skin.

upperparts bright green
forehead mid-blue
underparts olive-green
wings green with prominent red wing bend or "shoulder"
underwing (flight feathers) and undertail a darker shade of yellow-olive green but with a larger red patch on the lesser and median underwing coverts
eyes orange
orbital skin bright white, reduced in area (restricted to the eyes and loral area)
tail long, narrow
head large
bill black or bicoloured with a pale upper mandible (subspecies dependent)

Juvenile is duller lacking the red shoulder and blue forehead

South America: found in Peru, Bolivia, Venezuela, the Guianas and Brazil. An introduced population in Sao Paulo city. Everywhere threatened by trapping.

The species has in the past been placed in genus Ara.

Some authors elevate the southern subspecies as "Southern Red-shouldered Macaw" or "Noble Macaw", D. cumanensis (e.g. reference [4])

Clements recognises the following subspecies [1]:

D. n. nobilis: Eastern Venezuela to the Guianas and northern Brazil north of the Amazon. [the smallest subspecies with all-black bill]
D. n. cumanensis: "Southern Red-shouldered Macaw". Northern Brazil south of lower Amazon to north-eastern Brazil [larger than nobilis; bill with whitish upper mandible]
D. n. longipennis: "Southern Red-shouldered Macaw". South-eastern Peru and north-eastern Bolivia to central and south-eastern Brazil. [larger than cumanensis; bill with whitish upper mandible]

Tropical lowlands, savanna, marshes, gallery forest.

The diet includes seeds, berries, fruits, and blossoms. The usually feed in the tops of trees and bushes.

They usually nest in a tree hole. The 2-5 eggs are laid two days apart and are incubated for about 24 days. The young fledge at around 8 weeks.

Clements, J. F., T. S. Schulenberg, M. J. Iliff, D. Roberson, T. A. Fredericks, B. L. Sullivan, and C. L. Wood. 2014. The eBird/Clements checklist of birds of the world: Version 6.9., with updates to August 2014. Downloaded from http://www.birds.cornell.edu/clementschecklist/download/
Handbook of the Birds of the World Alive (retrieved February 2015)
Wikipedia
HBW and BirdLife International (2022) Handbook of the Birds of the World and BirdLife International digital checklist of the birds of the world. Version 7. Available at: http://datazone.birdlife.org/userfiles/file/Species/Taxonomy/HBW-BirdLife_Checklist_v7_Dec22.zip

BirdForum Opus contributors. (2025) Red-shouldered Macaw. In: BirdForum, the forum for wild birds and birding. Retrieved 20 January 2025 from https://www.birdforum.net/opus/Red-shouldered_Macaw

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