African Gray Parrot (Psittacus erithacus): Facts and Intelligence

What does an African gray parrot look like?

The African gray parrot is almost entirely gray. The head and wings are darker than the body, and each head and body feather has a thin pale edge, which gives the plumage a soft, scalloped look. The face around the eyes is bare, whitish skin, and the strong, hooked bill is black. The short, square tail is bright red, a flash of color that is easy to see when the bird flies.

Adults have pale yellow irises around a dark pupil. Young birds look similar but have dark gray to black eyes and a duller tail, so eye color is a useful clue to age. Males and females look alike; they can only be told apart reliably by DNA tests or by behavior during breeding.

Congo gray and Timneh parrot

For a long time the gray parrot was split into two subspecies. The western form, the Timneh parrot, is smaller and darker, with a dark maroon tail and a pale, horn-colored upper bill. After a 2007 genetic and anatomical study, most authorities, including BirdLife International and the IUCN, now treat it as a separate species, Psittacus timneh. The Timneh parrot lives in the far west of Africa, from Guinea-Bissau and Sierra Leone to western Ivory Coast, and is also listed as Endangered. This article covers the larger Congo gray parrot.

How big is an African gray parrot?

The African gray is a medium to large parrot, about the size of a pigeon but much stockier, with a big head and a heavy bill.

Individual birds vary, and birds from different parts of the range differ slightly in size. The Timneh parrot is noticeably smaller, usually weighing around 275–375 g (10–13 oz).

Where do African gray parrots live?

Gray parrots live in equatorial Africa, from eastern Ivory Coast and Ghana east through Nigeria, Cameroon, Gabon, the two Congos and the Central African Republic to Uganda, western Kenya and northwestern Tanzania, and south into northern Angola. They also live on the Gulf of Guinea islands of Bioko, Sao Tome and Principe.

Their preferred habitat is dense lowland rainforest, but they also use forest edges, clearings, gallery forest along rivers, mangroves and wooded savanna. They are birds of the canopy: they feed and nest high in tall trees and travel long distances each day between night roosts and feeding areas.

Escaped pet gray parrots have been seen in places such as southern Florida for decades, but there is no good evidence of a self-sustaining wild population outside Africa.

What do African gray parrots eat?

In the wild, gray parrots are mainly fruit and seed eaters. They feed on the fruit, seeds and nuts of many forest trees, and the fruit of the oil palm is especially important in some areas. They also eat flowers, nectar and tree bark, and occasionally insects and snails.

Gray parrots often feed high in the canopy, but they also come down to the ground. In parts of Cameroon and the Central African Republic, flocks gather in forest clearings called bais to eat soil and drink mineral-rich water. Researchers think this clay and water may supply sodium and other minerals that are scarce in a fruit diet, and may help neutralize plant toxins. Hundreds of parrots can visit a single clearing in a morning, which makes these sites spectacular but also easy targets for trappers.

Behavior and communication

Gray parrots are very social birds. They travel in pairs and small family groups during the day and gather in large communal roosts at night, often in tall trees on river islands or at forest edges. Historically, single roosts in West and Central Africa held hundreds or even thousands of birds. They are noisy at dawn and dusk, when they leave and return to the roost with whistles, shrieks and clicks.

In the wild they are wary and hard to study, partly because they are prey for large raptors. Little is known about their daily life compared with their behavior in captivity. What is known is that their vocal range is huge. In one study in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, two wild birds recorded at a roost produced more than 200 different calls, including imitations of other bird species and of a bat. Like other parrots, they probably use learned calls to recognize members of their own flock.

Why are gray parrots so intelligent?

In captivity the gray parrot has become a model animal for studying bird intelligence. From 1977 to 2007, the American scientist Irene Pepperberg worked with a parrot named Alex. Alex learned to label about 50 objects, seven colors and five shapes, to say how many items were on a tray up to six, and to answer questions about “same” and “different”. He used more than 100 English words, and he appeared to understand many of them rather than simply repeating sounds.

Later studies showed that gray parrots can solve problems by inference, remember hidden objects and even help a partner get a food reward. These results are covered in how smart African gray parrots are. Gray parrots are among the smartest animals known, alongside crows, great apes and dolphins.

Reproduction and life cycle

Gray parrots are monogamous and nest in holes in tall trees, often in old cavities high above the ground. Each pair needs its own nest tree and defends the area around it. The breeding season varies across the range and is linked to the dry season and food supply.

The female lays three to five white eggs and incubates them for about 30 days, while the male brings her food. The chicks hatch naked and helpless and are fed by both parents. They leave the nest at about 12 weeks old and depend on their parents for another four to five weeks. Gray parrots start breeding at about three to five years of age.

How long do African gray parrots live?

Gray parrots are long-lived birds. In captivity they commonly reach 40–60 years, and a few have been reported to live longer. In the wild, life is much riskier, and one widely cited estimate puts the average wild lifespan at about 23 years. Many chicks and young birds die before then. For a comparison with other species, see how long parrots live.

Predators and threats

Natural predators include the palm-nut vulture and other large birds of prey, which can catch parrots in flight or at the roost. Monkeys raid nests for eggs and chicks.

The biggest threat by far comes from people. For decades, gray parrots were among the most heavily traded wild birds in the world. Well over a million wild-caught gray parrots are thought to have been exported from Africa between the mid-1970s and the 2010s, and between 1994 and 2003 alone more than 359,000 were traded on the international market. Trapping is cruel and wasteful: studies suggest that well over half of wild-caught birds die between capture and sale. Parrots are trapped at roosts, clay licks and nest trees, often with glue or nets.

Forest loss from logging and farming removes the tall trees that the birds need for nests and roosts. The species is also hunted for meat and for body parts used in traditional medicine in some areas.

Conservation status

The IUCN Red List moved the gray parrot from Vulnerable to Endangered in 2016 because of a rapid decline across much of its range. The global population is very uncertain, with estimates ranging from several hundred thousand to over 10 million birds, but nearly everywhere numbers are falling. In Ghana, surveys published in 2015 found that the species had declined by 90–99% since 1992 and had almost disappeared.

In 2016 the countries of CITES, the treaty that regulates international wildlife trade, moved the gray parrot to Appendix I, banning international commercial trade in wild-caught birds from January 2017. Smuggling continues, however, and enforcement is a major challenge. The reasons for the decline, and the work to reverse it, are explained in why African gray parrots are endangered.

Myths and facts

Myth: gray parrots only repeat sounds without meaning. Mimicry is only part of the story. Controlled experiments show that gray parrots can use words to label objects, colors and quantities correctly, although scientists still debate how close this comes to human language.

Myth: the gray parrot is a common bird because it is common in homes. Most captive birds are now bred in captivity, but the wild population has collapsed in several countries. Popularity as a pet is one of the main reasons the species is in trouble.

Fact: the scientific name refers to a mimic. The species name erithacus comes from an Ancient Greek word for a bird that was said to imitate sounds.

Relationship with people

People have kept gray parrots for thousands of years, and the bird appears in records from ancient Greece and Rome. Today it is one of the best-known talking birds; you can read how it compares with mynas, starlings and crows in which birds can talk.

Ecotourism at forest clearings in Cameroon and the Central African Republic gives visitors a rare chance to see wild flocks, and protected areas, community patrols and law enforcement against trafficking are now the gray parrot’s best hope.