The Feather Tree

Double Yellow-Headed Amazons:
the Tres Maria and Magna

Sorry, we cannot export Yellow-Headed Amazons because they are CITES APPENDIX I,

and nobody in the US can get export permits for CITES I species.

Shown are photos of our breeding stock of these uncommon variants of the Double Yellow-headed Amazon.
These birds are often misnamed by people unfamiliar with the color differences. Hopefully these photos will help to clarify the confusion.

We are very fortunate to have obtained our founder breeding stock of Tres Maria Amazons from Walter Hansen,
who wrote the definitive article about this rare subspecies in Cage-Bird Magazine.

Magna breeding pair: male on right is over 20 years old, female on the left is 6 years of age.

Note the black barring to breast feathers and the yellow on the shoulders.

Tres Maria male is 10 years of age. Note the lack of barring on the chest and the yellow on the shoulders. Also note bluish chest color.

This 24 month old bird is the son of the bird at the left.

This photo was taken by Walter Hansen in the Tres Maria Islands off the western coast of Mexico.

This photo was taken of a domestically-raised Tres Maria Amazon at our breeding facility in Long Beach, California.

Here are the three Tres Maria Amazon chicks raised in 2000. photos by Gail J. Worth

This baby will have gorgeous coloring in a year or two.

This 12 week old baby is a Tres Maria Amazon.
Look at the bluish breast coloration and the slight amount of barring which dissipates with age.

Here are photographs of Double Yellow-Headed Parrot skins at the Los Angeles County Museum of Natural History. In the photo on the left are four skins of Tres Maria Amazons collected from the Tres Maria Islands off the coast of Mexico in 1947. The beaks and feet have darkened over time but the feathers still show the characteristic coloration. In the photo on the right, the skin on the far right is of a nominant Double Yellow-Headed Amazon from the mainland of Mexico. This skin shows the heavy barring typical of the nominant Amazona oratrix.

new male, Monty, shown at left; new pair shown together at right

The hen is the one you have seen as a baby in the 2002 Baby Bird Calendar, shown with a baby Tres Marias Amazon on the "where are they now" page. The male, Monty, has been at a friend's aviary for many years. He is a very gentle bird with a nice blue wash in his feathers and good breast coloring. He also has flight feathers that are half yellow.

See our Magna and Tres Maria youngsters!

Photos are by Steve Garvin unless otherwise noted.

more Tres Maria/Magna photos

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