SCARLET MACAWS

Scarlet Macaws Holidays

Scarlet macaws are large colorful parrots that live in Central and South America. The South American scarlet macaw is a red and yellow bird with white patches on its face and green feathers on its wings.  The South American scarlet macaw is found in Columbia, Equador, Peru and Brazil. Scarlet macaws prefer undisturbed rainforest. They eat fruits, nuts, flowers and nectar, and they often eat unripe fruit and nuts that other animals avoid. These macaws also eat clay from river banks. No one is sure why they do this, but the clay seems to be important to them. One hypothesis is that the clay helps the parrots to digest poisonous chemicals found in the unripe fruit they eat.

A pair of scarlet macaws raises one or two young each season in a tree cavity nest. The young birds often stay with their parents for up to two years. The adult parrots will not rear another clutch until the young leave the nest. As a result, the number of macaws increases slowly.

Deforestation has had a big impact on the scarlet macaws. Without their natural habitat, they stop building nests and producing young, and can have difficulty finding enough to eat. Unfortunately, deforestation can be hard to stop because people need land to grow food. A lot of scarlet macaws have been taken from the wild to be sold as pets.