Coral Billed Pionus

The Coral Billed Pionus is another up coming wonderful Pionus specie, also known as the Red Billed Pionus.  This specie is known to have 6 sub species with the one more commonly found to be Pionus sordidus. Pictured to the left or right of this page is a young Coral Bill of 5 months old. The young off spring start out with a light pale crème colored mandible and then in about 2 months of age the red coral like coloring will start to appear lightly on the mandible (beak) along with it is a nearly black coloring that comes in which will fade out as the young Coral Bill age approaches at along a year old.

The Coral Billed Pionus tends to have a confident personality, very easy going and good natured! While their rarity still exists somewhat hopefully they will be plentiful for the pet trade soon.  Here in the U.S. there are not that many breeders that breed the Coral Bill Pionus.
 ← Hatchling 6 days old.
 

As you may have seen on the site the Coral Bill Breeder Program I am trying to get established will be a time consuming effort in bringing these beauties to the point where they will be just as common as the other other 5 species that you often run across. Before I can release Coral Bills as pets I must get number of pairs produced so I can have more of pairs to also sell to other breeders who want new bloodlines. This is an important role as we need to keep producing new bloodlines so we keep the genes as pure as can be.

Like the Maximilian Pionus I find the Coral Billed Pionus to have much similarities to their personality but in observing them I notice the Coral Bill has a great disposition like the Maximilian. This is not to say that the Maximilian is not great because they are still remarkably fabulous!  The dark eyes on the Coral Bills are much deeper brown - almost black looking!

I'd have to say anyone looking to buy a Coral Bill would not be disappointed in their sweet natured personality... I highly recommended the Coral Bill.

In the photo above are two males and you can see the similarities between the Coral Billed & the Maximilian in the coloring of the body with both having the purplish like coloring on the upper chest area and yet the beaks are quite different with color.  The skin of the eye ring is a bit different as well.

Technical Descriptions

Adults head olive-green, feathers of crown and occiput broadly edged with dark blue; cheeks olive, feathers tipped with blue; chin and band across throat blue; breast olive, each feather sub terminally tinged with the dull mauve-pink; abdomen buff olive slightly suffused with dull pink; under tail-coverts red; upperparts dull olive green, each feather margined with paler olive-brown; primary-coverts and flight feathers green, outer most primary edged with blue on outer web; under wing-coverts and underside of flight feathers green; central tail-feathers green, lateral feathers blue basally barred with red; bill red; iris very dark brown; legs dark grey.

Immatures Head, throat and breast pale green; feathers of crown narrowly edged with blue; under tail-coverts yellowish-green variably marked with red. Immatures also tend to have red feathers just above the cere as well.

Distribution From northern Venezuela and western Columbia south through Ecuador and eastern Peru to northern Bolivia. Confined to the mountains of north-western Venezuela from Lara and Falcon east to the Caracas district. Occurring primarily between 500 m and 1,500 m on the lower slopes of the Andes, the Red-Billed Pionus Parrot frequents forests and forests margins, through often coming into adjacent clearings to feed.

This species is usually encountered in pairs or flocks up to forty, but local movements   involving larger flocks have been recorded. They feed on fruits, berries and seeds procured in the treetops.