Mob Menagerie: Parrot

Minecraft’s jungles are one of the few places in the game where you’re actually safer than you probably think you are. The dense foliage can cause players to get a little paranoid – worried that a zombie is creeping up on them. 

But even if you do hear the tell-tale moan of the undead, there’s always the possibility that it’s not an actual zombie approaching – but instead a mere imitation from our mob of the month: the parrot.

Parrots started showing up in the jungles over the Overworld following the World of Color update in June 2017 – probably because they’re so colorful. In fact there are five different colors of parrot that can be found: red, green, blue, gray and cyan.

Parrots mostly just flap around the area where they spawn. They’re inquisitive and like to crowd around other mobs – players or otherwise – where you’ll often hear them mimicking the sounds of nearby creatures. They can be tamed by feeding them seeds, but unlike most passive mobs they can’t be bred.

Tamed parrots will follow the player who tames them, unless they’re told to sit with the use button. Moving through a parrot sat on the ground will put the parrot on your shoulder, for that pirate-y look. And two shoulders means you can carry up to two parrots at the same time.

Parrots also love music. If they’re near a jukebox with a music disc inside it, they’ll happily dance. In fact, often they get so carried away that they keep dancing even after the music stops. 

Outside of Minecraft, parrots are a group of more than 400 bird species that mostly live in tropical parts of the world. What all those species have in common are clawed feet, an upright stance, and a strong, curved beak. That beak is used to feed on seeds, nuts, fruit and other plant material, though a few parrot species are carnivorous.

Parrots are one of the most intelligent bird families, and are known for the ability of some species to imitate human speech. This, combined with their beautiful colouration, make them popular as pets. Unfortunately, this means that wild populations are dropping – about half of all the 100 million parrots alive are thought to live in people’s homes.

However, the parrots are fighting back. Some urban areas are home to flocks of feral parrots which have escaped from captivity and bred with other escapees. San Francisco, London, Miami, Giza, and Istanbul are all known for their flocks of escaped parrots.

We’ll never know whether Minecraft’s parrot populations are wild, or have escaped from captivity at some point in the past. What we do know is that they’re here now, and they love to dance. So grab some seeds, a jukebox, and your favorite music disc – and let’s boogie.