That Bird Blog – Bird Care and History for Pet Birds

Educators at an animal rescue center in the UK got a rude surprise when they recruited “Mr. T” to visit local schools as part of a conservation-themed program.  The 7 year-old Green-Winged Macaw was friendly and eager to show off his speaking abilities, but most of what he said was not fit for classroom use.  Before coming to the rescue center, Mr. T had lived in a private home, and had picked up a huge vocabulary…unfortunately, almost all of it consisted of curses and insults!

Un-learning Bad Habits?

One rescue center employee is working with Mr. T to see if he might be taught to stop cursing.  In my experience, however, teaching a macaw to speak is easier than teaching it to forget what has been learned (much like 3 year-old children who pick up the “wrong” words!).

A related and very interesting phenomenon is unfolding right now in several Australian cities.  Cockatoos that have escaped from captivity are teaching entire flocks of wild individuals to speak!  Please see this article for the very amusing details.

Fortunately, the rescue center where Mr. T resides is home to “well-behaved” wallabies, kangaroos, scorpions and other animals, so his services as an educator are not needed immediately.  It will be interesting to see who prevails, the macaw or his new teacher…I’m betting on Mr. T!

Parrots Behaving Badly

Mr. T is not the only Psittacine to be ejected from various UK forums in recent times.  Awhile back, an Amazon persisted in cursing like a trooper each time he was called upon to perform in a play…despite the fact that he knew his lines perfectly (seems like he planned the “mistakes” very carefully!).   Another was banned from a bar for stealing drinks, heckling pool players and starting fights by whistling at female patrons (this bird now living in more appropriate surroundings).  Please see this article for details.

But one cursing parrot, an African Gray named Mishka, has done quite well for herself – winning an international speaking contest and a movie role.  Please see the video and article below… her repetition of  “I want to go to the Kruger Park with Sterretjie” (Sterretjie is her favorite companion, a Ring-Necked Parakeet) is priceless!

Odd Birds I have Known

Mischievous birds of all kinds enlivened my zoo career.  Margie, a Cassowary, liked to sneak up and kick her fence whenever anyone leaned against it.  A fellow zookeeper allowed himself to be ambushed regularly, and the huge bird really seemed to look forward to “surprising” him.  An Indian Hill Myna that called “Help, let me out” in a huge aviary was quite a hit with visitors…but not with the zoo director, when he came to record bird calls for an upcoming presentation!  From overly-amorous Great Horned Owls to overly-aggressive Turacos, there have been many odd characters in my life… please see the articles below for details.

Most bird owners and bird watchers have their share of amusing or embarrassing stories…please write in with yours, so that I can share them with other readers.

Further Reading

African Gray Parrot Wins Talking Contest 

An Unusual Turaco

Is a Macaw the Right Bird for You?

Cockatoos, Koels, Ibis and Honeyeaters Causing Havoc in Australia

Green Winged Macaw by Dcoetzee (Own work) [CC0], via Wikimedia Commons
Hartlaub’s Turaco by derekkeats (Flickr: IMG_2170.resized) [CC-BY-SA-2.0 (www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

Hello, Frank Indiviglio here.  When the staff at the Australian Museum in Sydney began receiving calls about entire flocks of talking cockatoos, galahs and corellas, they suspected pranksters, or that alcohol was involved.  But, oddly enough, the reports turned out to be genuine. It seems that an odd phenomenon is taking shape in Sydney and other Australian cities…wild parrots are talking to one another – and to people!

Mimics by Design

Cockatoos and other parrots are social birds, and have complicated systems of communication that we are only just beginning to understand. For example, ornithologists recently learned that some species provide their chicks with “names” that are then learned and used by other flock members (please see article below). The ability to learn from one another, and from people, is behind Australia’s latest unique bird story. Read More »

Most parrot owners firmly believe that their pets understand at least some of what they say.  My own experience also indicates that this is true – there are just far too many examples of parrots’ utterances fitting the situation to be mere coincidence.  Then, of course, there was the famous Alex, an African Grey Parrot whose amazing learning abilities shocked even seasoned animal behaviorists (please see article below).  A recent study took an interesting new approach to analyzing parrot speech, and yielded some surprising findings. Read More »

Contests in which parrots and other birds are judged based on their appearances are a long tradition…but what about their other qualities? Participants in human beauty pageants are judged on both appearance and talent…and now, it seems, that parrots are as well in some contests.  Recently, an African Grey Parrot named Mishka won the World Wide Parrot Talking Competition – without having to reveal any “skin”!

Tough Competition

The contest, sponsored by Besttalkingparrot.com, attracted 60 talented parrots from points as widespread as Chile, Canada, Australia and Africa.  The winner, three-year-old Mishka, resides with her owner and family members in a small apartment near Johannesburg, South Africa.  Read More »

Parrots are among the most vocally gifted of birds, and rely heavily upon complex communication skills when interacting with one another. Their vocalizations originate in the syrinx, or “voice box”, and it is from this organ that their voices’ complexities were assumed to originate. However, as bird keepers know, parrots continually bob their tongues up and down when calling or imitating speech. Wondering why parrots might do this, researchers at Indiana and Leiden (Netherlands) Universities looked closely at this behavior.

The Parrot Tongue at Work
Their work led to the discovery that the tongue’s influence on sound may be as important to parrots as it is to people…in common with us, the sound that leaves the parrot’s voice box is not that which eventually exits the mouth. Parrot tongue action is finely controlled, and variations of a fraction of a millimeter can produce sounds that differ in character as much as do the human ‘O” and “A”.

As hobbyists know, parrots are both highly intelligent and social. So, in retrospect, it makes sense that they would have evolved a means of producing complex sounds to communicate with each other. Also, they can be quite choosy (maddeningly so, to breeders!) when deciding upon a mate – perhaps the tongue’s action imprints each parrot’s voice with a distinct quality, as it does in people, and this somehow functions in mate selection.
Parallels in People
These findings have important implications for human speech and communication behavior research. In birds as in people, vocalizing is largely a learned behavior, and specific areas of the brain are involved. Studies of these areas, and how they affect the parrot’s ability to imitate human voices, may shed light on the origin and treatment of human speech maladies.

There is always something new being reported somewhere in the world of birds.

You can read more about the parallels between human and parrot (and other animal) vocal abilities at:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/3430481.stm