Parrot

Overview

A Parrot on your shoulder is an early-warning system disguised as decoration. It imitates the sound of any hostile mob within about 20 blocks, so a hiss or a groan coming from the bird tells you something is behind you before you see it — genuinely useful while mining or building at night, and the only mechanical reason to keep one. Taming costs any seed type: wheat, melon, pumpkin, beetroot or torchflower seeds, offered repeatedly until hearts appear. After that it perches on either shoulder, flies after you when you move, and dances beside a playing jukebox. It has 6 health, five colour variants, glides instead of taking fall damage, and cannot be bred at all, so every Parrot you own was tamed in a jungle. The one rule that matters more than all the rest: never feed a Parrot a cookie. It deals fatal damage and applies Poison, and the bird dies almost immediately — it is one of the few instant-kill interactions in Minecraft and it catches new players every time, because a cookie looks like food. They spawn on grass, leaves or logs in jungle, sparse jungle and bamboo jungle biomes at light level 7 or above, and drop 1 to 2 feathers.

Mob detection. A tamed Parrot mimics the sound of any hostile mob within about 20 blocks, which warns you of a creeper or skeleton approaching from outside your field of view.

Tame a parrot with any seeds and it perches on your shoulder, flies after you, and imitates the sound of any hostile mob within twenty blocks, which is a genuinely useful early warning that a creeper is behind you. Parrots dance next to a playing jukebox. Never feed one a cookie: it kills the parrot almost instantly. They cannot be bred, and they glide rather than take fall damage.

Parrot is a tameable mob in Minecraft Java Edition 1.21.4. You will need to deal 6 damage — 3 hearts — to kill one. It is worth 3 XP.

Properties

Parrot has 6 health, which is 3 hearts. It drops up to 3 experience when a player kills it. Its hitbox is 0.5 blocks wide and 0.9 tall, which is what decides whether it fits through a gap or a one-block-high opening.

Spawns in

Spawns on grass, leaves or logs in jungles, in five colour variants.

It is restricted to Jungle, Sparse Jungle, and Bamboo Jungle, so it will never turn up outside those biomes however dark it gets.

Dimension

Overworld

Light level

≥ 7

Biomes

Jungle, Sparse Jungle, Bamboo Jungle

Added in

1.12

Dimension: Overworld · Added in 1.12

Drops

Killing Parrot drops Feather, plus up to 3 experience. Looting raises the maximum on most of these by one per level.

• Feather: 1–2

How it behaves

The Parrot can be tamed, after which it follows and defends you. A tamed one still takes damage, so it is worth naming so it never despawns.

Killed by a player it drops up to 3 experience; killed any other way it drops none.

Command

In a world with cheats on, this spawns one Parrot where you are standing.

Guides and tools that cover this

• GuidesHow to Fight Every Hostile Mob in Minecraft→
• GuidesHow to Build a Base That Mobs Cannot Enter→

Frequently asked questions

Related pages

CatDonkeyHorseMuleWolf

How to get it

Parrots spawn in jungle, sparse jungle and bamboo jungle biomes at light level 7 or above, in 5 colour variants. Tame one by feeding any seeds repeatedly until hearts appear; they cannot be bred, so each one must be tamed in the wild.

Tips

• Never give a Parrot a cookie — it kills the bird almost instantly and applies Poison as it goes.
• Keep one on each shoulder while mining, since the imitation sounds carry through walls you cannot see past.
• Bring a stack of seeds to the jungle, because taming fails repeatedly and there is no breeding to fall back on.
• Sit a Parrot near a jukebox and it dances for as long as the disc plays.