The handsome red-and-green Thick-billed Parrot is the only surviving parrot species native to North America. (The other, the Carolina Parakeet, is long extinct.) This is a parrot of high mountain ranges, or “sky islands,” which it shares with the Violet-crowned Hummingbird, Painted Redstart, and Varied Bunting.

Thick-billed Parrots are highly social, feeding and roosting in groups. They often fly in a V formation like geese while moving from roosting to feeding areas, and like other parrots, have loud calls that can be heard almost a mile away. This is a species that doesn't mind the cold; the birds are often seen foraging in snow-covered trees and even eating snow as a water source.

Like many parrot species, including the Yellow-eared Parrot and the Golden-plumed Parakeet, the Thick-billed Parrot prefers to nest in tree cavities, especially old woodpecker holes made in large, old aspens or pines.

The birds feed on seeds from various pine species and are dependent on a steady supply of cones, adopting a nomadic lifestyle that follows variations in cone abundance. Thick-billed Parrots even breed in tandem with the peak of pine seed production.