This medium-sized parakeet has a bluish-grey head, a green body, a red bill and a yellow-tipped tail. Males and females are alike except for a red patch on the male's shoulder. It feeds on crops, fruits and flowers. Its call is a metallic and grating screech.
When me and my family visited Kaziranga national park in Assam, we saw a tree full of parakeets. As we had seen dozens of parakeets before, all of us ignored it except for my sister who took a photo of a random parakeet. Only after we returned to our hotel room and were looking through the photos, we realised that the parakeet my sister had captured with her camera was a Slaty-Headed Parakeet.
This bird is usually found at elevations of 450-2500 meters in its natural habitat. It also mingles with other parakeet species like the Blossom-Headed Parakeet, Plum-Headed Parakeet and the Rose-Ringed Parakeet. Slaty-Headed Parakeets also nest together in the abandoned nest cavities of the scaly-bellied woodpecker for protection from predators.
Slaty-Headed Parakeets are usually present in small groups while feeding on various fruits and flowers. Larger flocks are seen near the end of the et season when they descend into the valleys for the winter.