From BirdLife:
Festive boost for Georgetown
16-11-2005
The Guyana Amazon Tropical Birds Society has discovered a breeding pair of Festive Parrots Amazona festiva in the capital city of Georgetown, Guyana.
Georgetown is well known for its diverse bird life (199 recorded species), but this is the first time that the Festive Parrot has been recorded in the city.
The birds were discovered on 30 September by Andy Narine, the President of the Guyana Amazon Tropical Birds Society, nesting in the city’s Botanic Gardens.
There is no clear data on the population of these birds in Guyana and the Society is hoping to carry out more detailed study of the species.
In the meantime they will continue to monitor the health of the two Festive Parrots in the Botanic Gardens and record their behaviour.
Stamps on Pacific parrots and pigeons: here.
Related articles
- World Parrot Refuge opens in Coombs, B.C. (metronews.ca)
- Miami Springs may be parrot boomtown (miami.typepad.com)
Dear Kitty. Some blog 
From the Google cache of Dear Kitty ModBlog, 07-08-2005
Public release date: 8-Jul-2005
Contact: gardner@brandeis.edu
781-736-4204
Brandeis University
African grey parrot is first bird to comprehend numerical concept akin to zero
Ground-breaking research is reshaping understanding of the avian brain and holds promise in teaching learning-disabled children
Waltham, Mass. – A Brandeis University researcher has shown that an African grey parrot with a walnut-sized brain understands a numerical concept akin to zero – an abstract notion that humans don’t typically understand until age three or four, and that can significantly challenge learning-disabled children
Strikingly, Alex, the 28-year-old parrot who lives in a Brandeis lab run by comparative psychologist and cognitive scientist Dr. Irene Pepperberg, spontaneously and correctly used the label “none” during a testing session of his counting skills to describe an absence of a numerical quantity on a tray.
This discovery prompted a series of trials in which Alex consistently demonstrated the ability to identify zero quantity by saying the label “none.”
Dr. Pepperberg’s research findings, published in the current issue of The Journal of Comparative Psychology, add to a growing body of scientific evidence that the avian brain, though physically and organizationally somewhat different from the mammalian cortex, is capable of higher cognitive processing than previously thought.
Chimpanzees and possibly squirrel monkeys show some understanding of the concept of zero, but Alex is the first bird to demonstrate an understanding of the absence of a numerical set, Dr. Pepperberg noted.
Spectacled parrotlets, Forpus conspicillatus
Read more here http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2005-07/bu-agp070805.php
See also here http://www.livescience.com/animalworld/050708_parrot_zero.html
Research on another parrot species, spectacled parrotlets, Forpus conspicillatus, has shown parrots name each other.
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