Next month (January 2009) we’re going to be trying something new here on 10,000 Birds by spending 30 days (no-one writes on New Years Day do they?) concentrating on one ‘theme’ in particular: yes, we’ll be looking closely at parrots (the clue was probably in the phrase “Parrot Month” in this post’s title?).

We won’t just be posting about parrots of course, we’ll be posting about other birds too - but what we’ve been organising for “Parrot Month” is a whole series of eg interviews with parrot conservationists, articles written by us and by parrot experts about parrots and parrot welfare, thought-provoking commentary (mainly written by us I suspect, but time will tell!), and photo-galleries of parrots in the wild.

Why would we do that, some readers might be asking? Not just because we’re a bird blog and they’re beautiful and popular birds (like the Galah Eolophus roseicapilla (left) I photographed in Melbourne), but because - remarkably - parrots have proportionately more threatened species amongst their ranks than any other large bird family (as the World Parrot Trust says on their website, “Of the more than 350 known species of parrots, nearly 100 are threatened in wild. Popular as pets, many are captured for the wild bird trade or suffer from hunting or loss of habitat”). How many of us know that I wonder? How many of us when we think of parrots picture a macaw in a cage or a Cockatoo perched on a proud owner’s shoulder rather than a highly endangered bird in danger of extinction? I would guess rather a lot of us actually, judging by the mails we get asking us for advice on buying and keeping parrots…

Photo right: Feral Green-cheeked Amazon Amazona viridigenalis offspring due to fledge in Los Angeles, CA. Copyright Bowles/Erickson. All rights reserved.

And I include myself in that last statement. When I reviewed the excellent “Rare Birds Yearbook 2009″ a few weeks ago I was perturbed to realise how little I knew about the 12 parrots it described. In fact, after flicking through a few books I was astonished to realise how little I knew about the vast majority of the world’s parrot species at all! I thought I’d find out, and so for the last few weeks I’ve been mailing experts all over the world asking all sorts of questions, obtaining all sorts of photographs, and interviewing some remarkably inspiring people.

As a result the ‘parrot theme month’ (originally the ‘parrot theme week’ to be honest, but parrot people are very generous with their time and their words - oh, and their photos!) has slowly fallen into place - and I’m very excited about it.

Right now I’m not sure exactly what we’ll be posting in January or when we’ll be posting it (I’m still waiting for responses from a few people I’ve mailed), but we already have eg interviews “in the can” with Dr Jamie Gilardi (exec director of the World Parrot Trust), Dr Stewart Metz (director of the Indonesian Parrot Project), and Karen Cheek Justice (who runs the Parrot University and worked for a month in Qatar at the world-renowned Al Wabra Wildlife Preservation with one of the world’s rarest birds, the Spix’s Macaw which is now extinct in the wild and totally dependent on the success or otherwise of breeding programmes).

We also have eg articles written by Ricardo Valentin, who works on building up numbers of another threatened parrot, the Critically Endangered Puerto Rican Amazon; Monica Engebretson of Born Free USA who writes about the smuggling of wild parrots, and Greg Glendell, an expert on behavioural problems in captive parrots.

We will also be posting a range of articles we’ve written ourselves (eg on the extinction of mainland North America’s only native parrot, the Carolina Parakeet), look at an important fund-matching appeal by the World Parrot Trust, promoting National Bird Day, and no doubt stirring up comments of all sorts along the way.

And in case you think we’re being ‘blog hogs’ I’m delighted to announce that Biological Rambling’s Nick Sly will be expanding further on the work he’s been doing in Venezuala on Green-rumped Parrotlets Forpus passerinus (see Forpus passerinus and the ornithologists of Masagural). Good stuff eh…

Yes, the emphasis of “Parrot Month” will be on conservation but it will be a very interesting and informative series (with lots of cracking photos) for anyone with any interest at all in parrots - hopefully for anyone with an interest in birds at all come to think of it. And if you’ve never previously given much of a thought about parrots hopefully you already feel that there’s more to learn about them than you’d ever imagined possible? I know that as of today and after a whole pile of emails and research I certainly do…

Rainbow Lorikeet Trichoglossus haematodus, Sydney, Copyright Charlie Moores