Abstract
We, the aviculturalist, get our drive and interest on many grounds. Some want a paying hobby. Others may do it for prestige of ownership by concentrating on rarities. All want to get our pairs to produce healthy offspring. Whatever the reasons, we all tend to have an acquisitive bias towards those forms that are difficult to acquire.
It should be as self-evident to the conservationist as it is to the psittaculturist, that species of birds that are the victims of frequent importation seldom are worth breeding. Is it not pointless breeding birds which no one wants to buy? Yet, it is highly important for those who are concerned with the conservation of parrots in the wild to encourage the breeding of non-endangered species, for this takes some of the pressure off the free-living populations.
Caiques do have the fortunate advantage that it is difficult to obtain four of the five forms, which, although certainly not endangered in the wild, are rare in collections and so continue to have sufficient value to encourage breeders.
The caique Pionites is a tropical parrot. It mainly lives in the enormous mass of open forest that grows over the wide catchment area of that mightiest of rivers, the Amazon. The woods in which it is distributed surround the river's tributaries from the base of the Andes (in Ecuador, Peru, Venezuela and Brazil) to run over the maximum width of the South American continent right to the Atlantic seaboard.
Contrary to general ornithological acceptance, and as the slides show, there is but one species of caique with five main variations of plumage. It is weak on the wing and must find it impossibly difficult to cross the large stretches of unfavorable territory such as thick forest or wide rivers to intermingle populations. Therefore it should be obvious that, with such a large area to inhabit, the caique will vary in appearance in different locations.
The caiques that live to the north of the Amazon have black caps to the head, giving them the scientific name of Melanocephala, and the colloquial one of Black-headed Caiques. Whereas those on the southern side of the river have (as adults) orangered heads. It would be sensible to call this "lower" population the Apricotheaded Caique yet, sadly, the ornithologist called it Leucogaster- the White-bellied, which is perfectly silly for all the (adult) races have white underparts.
Scientific names, once given, remain fixed. So, as the caiques are one species, then (for this is the oldest name) all are melanocephala.
The one form that is subject to free importation is P.m. melanocephala, the Black-headed Caique, the nominate race. It is garishly handsome with orange thighs. Way over to the west, the color of its feathered trousers becomes lemon-yellow and this then is the Pallid Caique P. m. pallida. It is said that natural hybrids between the two races have been found in the wild. This may well be so, but I have found that, in captivity, a very small percentage of purebred Pallid Caiques show a mere tint of orange to their legs. Nowadays, the Pallid Ca ique is extremely uncommon in captivity. Twenty years ago it was the only race to be imported in other than fractional numbers. As far as I know, only two breeders in Europe, other than myself, bother to perpetuate it.
The Yellow-thighed Apricotheaded Caique P. m. xanthomeria comes from the foothills of the Andes. None have been legally imported since Ecuador and Colombia imposed absolute embargoes on
the export of birds. It was, therefore, fortunate that this race, unlike the Pallid Caique, had never contributed in any great numbers to the dealers' lists. Being uncommon, even then, some of the few that arrived in Europe were taken into the collections of serious breeders. Although they are bred in increasing numbers, the total European population cannot yet be much greater than a hundred individuals.
This Yellow-thighed Apricotheaded Caique is expected (for it inhabits a geographically, and therefore vegetationally, fragmented range) to be divided up into distinct populations. In consequence of this genetic isolation it might be expected to show some variation in appearance, and it does. Those that I have seen in Europe usually have lemon-yellow feathers to their thighs. Yet the two on the cover of Watchbird, (vol. XVII: No.2, 1990) have orange-yellow trousers. This illustrated pair, as have most of the European birds, has horn-colored bills. There is no pigmentation to the skin. Yet odd European specimens have masses of black '' freckling" and, in these cases, the beak is heavily variegated with black. All the Yellowthighed Apricot-headed Caiques, despite their differences in skin and beak melanin, agree in having black legs and feet.
The Green-thighed Caique Pim. leucogaster is anything but uncommon in Brazil. It is far rarer in European psittaculture than is the Yellow-thighed Apricot-headed. Numbers are being built up at an ever increasing rate and, as yet, at least with myself, no inbreeding has been forthcoming. And inbreeding related birds, as we should know, is the guaranteed manner of obtaining color mutations. However, up to now this is the only race in which a color mutation (lutino) has been revealed.