pining for the fjords

a norwegian blue perhaps?

snip

55 million year old fossil remains of parrots discovered near the North Sea

Scientific researchers have discovered the fossil remains of parrots in Scandinavia which are more than 55 million years old. The findings, published in the current issue of Palaeontology, indicate that parrots, which today only live in the tropics and the southern hemisphere, once flew wild over what is now Norway and Denmark. This suggests that parrots may have first evolved in the North, much earlier than had previously been considered.

“Obviously, we are dealing with a bird that is bereft of life, but the tricky bit is establishing that it was a parrot,” explains Dr David Waterhouse, the lead author of the scientific paper. “As with many fragile bird fossils, it is a wonder that anything remains at all, and all that remains of this early Danish parrot is a single upper wing bone (humerus). But, this small bone contains characteristic features that show that it is clearly from a member of the parrot family, about the size of a Yellow-crested Cockatoo.”