The Brown Headed Parrot (Poicephalus cryptoxanthus) is a mostly green bird with an olive/brown head. Up close their head feathers are actually variations of gray/olive/yellow. The center of the feather is yellow which fades to olive and then the edges are gray. At first look they look just like any other Poicephalus with the gray heads, but when in photos, flashes tend to bounce off the olive and yellow and make their heads look brown. They Brown Head stand approximately 5-6 inches tall. The total length from head to tail is about 8 inches. The females weigh around 110 – 120 g and the males can weigh anywhere from 110 – 160 g. Their wings are a deep emerald green (thus how they got their common name in Europe of Emerald Parrot), their belly is an infusion of a lime green and some yellow. Under the wings is a bright lemon yellow that can only be seen when they lift their wings. The tail is a darker green.

Brown Heads in general are very sweet little birds. They adore scratches all over their body with the favorite being right under the chin. They are not quite as rambunctious as their Senegal or Red-Bellied cousins. What they lack in playfulness, they make up for in sweetness. They usually are very docile and don’t use their beaks quite as much as the other Poicephalus. However, some males can be just as bossy as any Red-Bellied or Senegal. They do have the capability of human speech, but most of them don’t choose to share that talent with their human companions. Even when they do choose to utter a sound it is usually not much louder than a mouse squeak. They use body language very well to communicate and most people that own a Brown Head don’t seem to miss the fact that they don’t choose to use our human language. They are still very independent just like the other species of the Poicephalus. If you just can’t play with them at any given moment they can easily entertain themselves in their cage or on a play gym, but they can be demanding of your attention if they see you don’t have anything better to do. They will very happily sit on your knee or chest and take scratches for hours on end.

Brown Heads are not near as playful or acrobatic as some of the other Poicephalus, but they do get into mischief. They love to ‘explore’ their surroundings; sometimes this means it is a bit difficult to keep them on a play stand or an open cage. They are not afraid to just hop down to the floor and start roaming around. They love to find things to play with on the floor, find some discarded food, or simply play in and under your furniture. If a Brown Head is flighted, they also love to explore everything else in your home, shelves, pictures on the walls, the back of the TV, dvd/cd racks…if you don’t want your brownie in these places – it is easier to just block them up than to try and train her not to go there (believe me we tried for over 9 years).

The Brown Head loves toys that are textured and shreddable. They don’t play so much with simple wood blocks. My girl really loves any toys with the paper picks sticking out, grass rope, mats or leaves, and adding machine tape. On her gym where we can keep an eye on her, she LOVES small lengths of yarn. She won’t leave me alone when I am crocheting, so I finally just give her her own piece and she will spend a good hour or more just flipping that small piece of yarn over her head.

Brown Heads are monomorphic meaning the only way to tell the sex of any particular bird is through DNA or surgical sexing. There are no visible differences between the sexes.