Guacamaya

You've got to love the looks of these colorful creatures!

The most conspicuous characters of the Scarlet Macaw and other macaws of the genusAra are their large body size, moderate to large and curve bill, long and graduated tail feathers, sexes with the same colormorphic plumage, exposed epidermis in the facial area and loud and croaky calls (Forshaw 1989, Abranson et al 1995).

There is only one species of macaw almost similar in plumage coloration to those of the Scarlet Macaw, that is the Red-and-green Macaw (Ara chloropterus) which is also larger than scarlets. Red-and-green Macaw has darker red and green median wingcoverts, inner secondaries, tertials and scapulars. Scarlet Macaw has yellow rather than green upper wing coverts and almost white bare patches on the lores where as Red-and-green Macaws have red contour feathered lines along the lores. Both Scarlet and Red-and-green Macaws have same color pattern of light ivory color in the upper mandible and dark gray to black in the lower mandible. However, Red-and-green Macaw have a larger and massive bill than Scarlet Macaw.

Scarlet Macaws has a deep and loud harsh calls, rrrraaah that can carry couple of kilometers, quieter at rest or feeding with soft raah calls. It can call a series of 3 to 9 continuous rrrraaah for few seconds with brief pauses in between each call. When perching or flying in pairs or large flocks (20 or more birds) their calls could be very loud. When feeding they have a soft continuous series of soft raah calls. [source: http://neotropical.birds.cornell.edu]

Thank you very much Alejandra! / Muchas gracias Alejandra!