Diet and Foraging

The diet of Cuban Parakeet is composed of seeds, pods, green and ripe fruits, leaves shots, flowers, flower buds including pollen and nectar (Cañizares, Iñigo-Elias personal observations). Currently we have documented over 50 plant species consumed by this species in the wild (Cañizares unpublished data).

A foraging ecology study conducted at the Ecological Reserve "Lomas de Banao" in Central Cuba mentioned that during the reproductive period (January to June) this population feeds primarily on 12 species of trees. The tree most frequently consumed was Zanthoxylum martiniscense (known locally as ayúa), which accounted for 54% of the observations of foraging during the two years of study. Other important species in the diet of the parakeet in this study were Sapium jamaicense and Cecropia schreberiana, green and ripe fruits of Manguifera indica, and green and tender fruits (for seeds) of the Royal Palm (Roystonea regia) and majagua flowers (Talipariti elatum) and Gliricidia sepium (Cañizares unpublished data). The consumption of other species in Banao occasionally was observed during the study period.

Barbour (1945) mentioned that Cuban Parakeet is a species of continuous tropical forests in the region Jardines de Soledad near Trinidad, where it feeds on the fruits of jobo (Spondias mombin). Gundlach (1876) reports that feeds fruits and seeds of mamoncillo (Melicocca bijuga) and ayua (Zanthoxylum martinicense).

Populations in Cateyes that nest in flooded savannas feed mainly on fruits of júcaro (Bucida buceras), guásima (Guazuma ulmifolia) and Royal Palm (Roystonea regia) (Cañizares personal observations). Iñigo-Elias observed during 12-18 February 2004 flocks of up to 27 individuals feeding on flowers and flower buds of the bucaro tree (Erythrina poeppigiana), fruit and seeds of orange trees (Citrus sinensis) (in possibly an abandoned coffee farm), fruits and seeds of Cecropia schreberiana, and fruits of Spondias mombin at the edges of tropical evergreen and semideciduous forests along the Rio Jaguaní, near Arroyo Cocalito in the Cuchillas del Toa Biosphere Reserve, in the eastern province of Guantanamo, Cuba.

Cuban Parakeet also was observed during from 4-6 April 2010 feeding on ripe and tender fruits and seeds of Roystonea regia at the Belem Station in the Sierra del Chorrillo Managed Resource Protected Area within the province of Camagüey (Iñigo-Elias personal observations).