Endangered Amazon Parrot Found at Seoul Café After Drinking Customer’s Coffee

A parrot rescued on Nov. 16 from a café in Yangpyeong-dong, Yeongdeungpo District, Seoul [Photo provided by the Korea Animal Rescue and Management Association].

SEOUL, Nov. 18 (Korea Bizwire) — By mid-afternoon on a gray November day in Seoul, the Yeongdeungpo Police Station received the kind of call that sounds like a prank until an officer has to write it down: A parrot is drinking my coffee.

When officers arrived at the small neighborhood café in Yangpyeong-dong, they found the culprit perched calmly on the outdoor terrace—a striking, half-kilogram bird with a yellow forehead, green plumage, and wings tipped in red and blue.

It wasn’t merely an escaped pet; it appeared to be a Yellow-headed Amazon, an endangered species native to Mexico and Central America, and one of only a few thousand left in the wild.

The parrot, unfazed by humans, submitted gently to being coaxed into a cardboard box. Café owner Cho, 34, said the bird had been lingering since midday, “wandering between tables, perfectly at ease,” before returning hours later to investigate a customer’s drink. Even when patrons tried to touch it, the bird sat still.

Now in the care of the Korea Animal Rescue and Management Association, the parrot is believed to have slipped out of someone’s home—or been abandoned. Either way, time is running out for the owner to claim it.

Because the species is listed under Appendix I of CITES, individual adoption is prohibited; if no one steps forward, the bird will be transferred to a protected facility at the National Institute of Ecology.

For now, the stray parrot waits, healthy and unbothered, as officials begin the slow bureaucratic process of verifying its species—another reminder that even in one of the world’s most densely packed cities, the unexpected can land softly on an outdoor café table and sip from a stranger’s cup.

Lina Jang (linajang@koreabizwire.com)