In voice, behaviour and character, this species has a lot in common with the Grey Parrot. It is quite capable of being noisy and of emitting a harsh scream - yet seldom does so. And the female in my possession is an extreme­ly quiet bird, never screaming and making soft 'hoo' sounds like a Jardine's Parrot. Hubert Astley said of his tame male that he had never once heard it scream. Cape Parrots can learn to talk and whistle and tame birds are every bit as delightful as a Grey and equally as intelligent.

The Cape Parrot was first bred in captivity in Basle Zoo, Switzerland. Consistent success has been achieved since 1964. Between 1964 and 1968, 15 young were reared in seven clutches.

The breeding pair was received in 1955 and lived with other Poicepha/us and Grey Parrots until 1964. One was attacked by a Meyer's Parrot, a dwarf in comparison. Not surprisingly, the Cape Parrots made no attempt to breed until the other birds had been removed from the aviary. A chick was hatched on April 16 and left the nest 74 days later. In 1966, it was presented to San Diego Zoo with a young bird from a later clutch. In October 1964, another chick was hatched but died after a few days. During the following year, the female laid on the floor and a keeper transferred the egg to the nest, where the female incubated, then de­serted. Another clutch resulted in three chicks hatching by August 10, which left the nest between October 4 and 16 (55 to 67 days old). In 1967, the young spent 72 to 79 days in the nest and, in 1968, they left the nest when aged be­tween 65 and 68 days old.

The young birds were described as showing brick red on the forehead which disappears at the age of about five months to be replaced, in the female, by a bright red band. The young birds' heads were plucked by the female but the feathers grew when they were separated from her.

The Cape Parrot (nominate race) was bred in South Africa by Jack Rough in the 1970s.

In the USA this species has been raised by Bob Nelson of Oregon since 1982. He described his hand-fed young (pers. comm., 1983) as:

... very nice, quite precocious, affable, and perpetual comics and acrobats - so active, happy and in general a constant delight. Their `human speech' is quite good also - good deliberate diction.

In Sweden, Birgitta Ullman obtained a female Cape Parrot and, unable to acquire a male, paired it with a male Jardine's Parrot (Ullman, pers. comm., 1984). The resulting young had the large bill of the Cape Parrot, which they resembled more than the male parent. The young could be divided into two types. Type I had very little red or yellow in the plumage; the head feathers were mainly grey-brown with occasional dark red feathers. Type II had varying areas of red and yellow on the head, and also on the body. One male had an entirely yellow mantle and large yellow patches on breast and abdomen. It seemed that areas which were poorly feathered on the young­ sters later became red or yellow. There was no difference in appearance be­tween the first generation hybrids and those produced by pairing the hybrids together.

One second generation hybrid female lived with a Grey Parrot, prob­ably male. An old female Grey in the same cage was ignored by the Grey. The male and the hybrid preened and fed each other but the female was not then old enough to breed.

Birgitta Ullman described the hybrid chicks as having white down, sparse and rather long. In one youngster, the down had been lost by the time it was 12 days old. There was no second down in these young.

In West Berlin, G. and H. Isert have bred the Cape Parrot since 1976. The two birds were put together in Septem­ber 1976 and were observed mating on November 6. Two eggs were laid, the first on November 26 and the second three days later. The first hatched after 28 days, the second two days later. They left the nest at the ages of 82 and 85 days. At six months old, both had lost the orange colouration on the forehead. At nine months old, the young female acquired two or three red feathers on the forehead; at ten months there was a 5 mm (1/5 in) wide band of orange on the head. At ten months the young male acquired the first red feathers on the thighs and the bend of the wing. They were independ­ent at 98 and 100 days old. At the end of 1977, two more young were reared, with two more in 1979 (Isert and Isert, 1980).

Their diet consisted of walnuts, hazelnuts, pine nuts, peanuts, sun­flower seed (dry and soaked), apple, banana and grapes, also carrot, egg yolk and corn. My own birds have an almost identical diet but for the hazel­nuts and banana; they refuse the latter. Favourite items of food are walnuts, the stones from cherries, plums and similar fruits, sweetcorn, and hawthorn berries.