Diet: The diet of White-fronted Amazons overlaps to a certain degree with the larger Yellow-naped Amazons and the smaller Orange-fronted Conures. They also eat a number of additional fruits and seeds not eaten by the two other species. This breadth of diet surely helps account for their broad range and high population densities:

Species	Season	Photo
Cochlospermum vitifolium seeds	Dry
Albizzia adinocephala seeds	Dry
Hippocratea volubulis seeds
Muntingia calabura fruits	Both	(See Conure page)
Spondias purpurea seeds	Dry/Wet
Nancite (Byrsonima crassifolia) fruit	Wet	(See Conure page)
Cordia guancastensis seeds & pericarp	Wet	(See Conure page)
Inga spp. seeds	Wet

 

Night Roosts: Like Conures and Parakeets, White-fronted Amazons shift the locations of their communal night roosts at irregular intervals. Typical longevity for roosts in the SSR is 3-5 weeks. Oak patches are a favorite sleeping site for this species. Like the other small resident parrots in the SSR, White-fronts begin staging in late afternoon. Birds already at the staging area are highly vocal and these calls appear to attract overflying conspecifics. Like the smaller sympatric species, and unlike the larger Yellow-napes, White-fronts do not sleep exposed on bare branches but instead nestle under the foliage of their sleeping trees. Night roosts often harbor a hundred or more birds. White-fronts typically awaken and move out of the foliage and into more exposed trees about 5:20 AM. They often sit and vocalize loudly for 10-30 minutes before foraging groups of 4-20 birds begin dispersing in all directions.

 

Nesting: Like the larger congener, White-fronted Amazons nest in natural cavities of trees, old woodpecker holes, and palms with rotten cores. They may enlarge these holes with some excavation. As with the other sympatric parrots, breeding occurs in the dry season. The female incubates the eggs, and both members of the pair feed the offspring. Adults appear to bring fledglings into the large social flocks and night roost aggregations early as begging offspring can be seen and heard within these larger flocks in late dry season and early rainy season.

 

Predators: White-fronted Amazons are presumably potential prey for some of the larger sympatric hawks. Both adults and nestlings are vulnerable to nest hole predators such as capuchin monkeys, snakes, coatis, and lizards when in the nesting cavities. There is some poaching of nestlings by humans for the pet trade, but this species is much less popular as a pet than the larger Yellow-naped Amazon, probaly due to its strident call and relatively poorer mimicry abilities.

 

Flock Structure: The high sociality of this species is in stark contrast to the relatively asocial pairs of sympatric Yellow-naped Amazons. While one does encounter single pairs, most White-fronted Amazons forage, play, stage, and sleep in large flocks.These birds appear to experience the same high levels of fission/fusion by groups seen in sympatric Conures and Parakeets.They are exceedingly vocal and the continuous joining and separating of groups is always accompanied by a cacophony of calling.