Parrots are astounding
As you can see.
I especially like the short sequence that begins around 5:35:
Why do parrots parrot? See this. It turns out that not only do they have a well-developed vocal apparatus as vocal learners, but they also want to fit in with the human flock.
Do they understand what they’re saying?:
For parrots, words may have some associations but not complex meanings, says Wright. “But they are very attuned to the context in which we use [words], and so I think that often fools people a little bit.” When a parrot says “Hello; how are you?” when its owner enters the room, for example, it’s “not necessarily interested in your well being” but is mimicking what it hears the owner saying when he or she comes in. In fact, a parrot’s understanding of “how are you,” is probably “Oh look, someone has come into the room.”
Then again, that’s not too different from people, is it? How many people who ask how you are really care about the answer?
Parrots are especially good at picking up profanity because they are “drawn to phrases and sounds associated with excitement and commotio.” Well, isn’t everyone?
And I find this rather fascinating:
… Those strolling in Sydney’s parks are being startled by squawks of “Hello darling!” and “What’s happening?” from the trees.
Wild birds such as galahs, sulphur-crested cockatoos and corellas are repeating phrases passed on by domesticated counterparts that escaped or were released, says naturalist Martyn Robinson, of Sydney’s Australian Museum.
[See also these posts.]
My tai chi teacher had an African Grey parrot, reputedly the most intelligent of birds. My teacher believed she was in telepathic communication with the parrot — she did run the Marin Tai Chi Center after all. Whatever the case, it was a spooky bird. She often brought it to class. I had the sensation of being observed by an equal.
Wiki:
The [African Grey] is common in captivity and is regularly kept by humans as a companion parrot, prized for its ability to mimic human speech, which makes it one of the most popular avian pets. An escaped pet in Japan was returned to his owner after repeating the owner’s name and address.
They are notorious for mimicking noises around their environment and using them tirelessly….
Grey parrots are also highly intelligent, having been shown to perform at the cognitive level of a 4- to 6-year-old child in some tasks. New experiments have shown that grey parrots can learn number sequences and can associate human voices with those humans’ faces. Most notably, Dr. Irene Pepperberg’s work with Alex the parrot showed his ability to learn over 100 words, differentiating between objects, colours, materials, and shapes.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grey_parrot
That vocabulary puts African Greys on par with elephants, also very intelligent animals.
Weirdly, my tai chi teacher was also big-time into handguns. She taught the San Francisco police and made friends. They taught her to shoot and she discovered she loved shooting.
Martial arts studios tend to be personality cults around the teacher, so soon enough most of her students were into guns too.
After class we sometimes went out for sushi. I would be sitting there, savoring my hamachi nigiri and listening to all these Marin tai chi students and teacher talk about guns!
Once in an antiques store, I heard the resident parrot going through its paces. The bird had learned to speak from a record, played repeatedly. The record had a crack, and the parrot reproduced that, too.
I don’t know a Dead Parrot from a live one.
The parrots have a brilliant future in journalism.
I think the bigger question is, do PEOPLE actually know what they (people) are saying….
Just last Monday I helped my granddaughter (2nd grade) write a report on parrots. I learned many things I never knew. Just one, they mate for life.
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THEN there’s always the famous “Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1OMiVruHMPA
FAQ for the Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill
“Most of the birds in the flock are of a species known variously as the cherry-headed conure, red-masked conure, and red-headed conure – all pet trade names. Ornithologists call them red-masked parakeets, and the scientific name is Aratinga erythrogenys. In the summer of 1995, a female mitred conure (or mitred parakeet, Aratinga mitrata) showed up. She began to breed with the cherry heads, and continued to do so until at least 2006. I don’t know whether she’s still alive. The hybrid offspring are fertile, so there are quite a few double hybrids in the flock now as well. In the past there have been two blue-crowned conures (blue-crowned parakeet, or Aratinga acuticaudata).”
“Then again, that’s not too different from people, is it? How many people who ask how you are really care about the answer?”
That’s me!
Often I do ask “how are you?” and get annoyed when the person (such as an acquaintance at work) will start to give me a run down on just exactly how they are doing! I really don’t care! I was just following standard protocol.
Does this mean I am nothing but a bird brain?
I want to get an African Grey and a Border Collie. I figure they can learn from each other and then teach me.
I’d bet the average Aussie wouldn’t give galahs credit for being able to learn to talk. They’re quite a “rodent-like” bird…almost a bother. My wife laughs out loud every time she sees one in a zoo. Who cages what you can see in the trees above your heads?
And don’t get me started on those sulphur-crested cockatoos. Not sure what purpose they serve…besides being a pest & quite destructive to trees & nut crops.
I used to walk through a park in SF where the telegraph parrots would hang out for part of the day. Pretty fun. Some would walk on you if you had some food. Wild parrots are not just a San Francisco thing now… I’ve seen others in Tustin and Long Beach (both are in southern California). Some even in the alley behind my condo in LB. Tusin ones were pretty big. More macaw than conure I’d bet.
That link in brackets at the very end of the post is to some previous posts I wrote about the wild parakeets in the US. I had originally seen them in a park in Chicago, where the weather is cold, and was quite stunned.
There is a story, perhaps apocryphal, which was on the BBC news site long ago about an explorer in South America who heard a parrot uttering the words of an extinct language. Apparently he was the last one to know the words in that language.
Wild birds picking up human-like sounds from domesticated ones is not surprising, given that the biggest, meanest predator with any experience in what humans and their bang-sticks can do will probably freeze in fear on hearing the distinct sound of a human voice from a direction they didn’t expect.
And if there’s one thing any creature, but especially birds, pick up on, it’s the power of their vocalizations. Any vocalization that scares predators that much is a powerful incantation indeed.
I’ve always had a soft spot for the intelligence research done on crows. Here is an interesting one.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZerUbHmuY04
We had a wonderful male Eclectus parrot given to us by an elderly neighbor who couldn’t care for him any more. Parrots are hard to keep as pets, people! think long and hard before you get one. They require constant attention and, no matter how sweet they seem, they are WILD AMIMALS and not entirely trustworthy. That being said, we were devastated when Mr. Burd died 5 years ago. He was a member of the family… a crazy, demented member of the family!
When I was a kid in Daytona Beach, there was a wonderful tourist attraction off US 1 called “Parrots Paradise.” It was a small tropical park covered by a large net filled with bright colorful parrots flying freely through the trees. The star was a mynah bird in a cage shaped like a guitar who could do an Elvis Presley imitation. To a ten year-old it was magic.
I guess they shut it down and sold the land sometime in the 70s. All that’s left now are postcards sold on eBay for $20 apiece.
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If the brain is the source of consciousness and intellect, then why are bird brained parrots and crows superior than monkeys and apes….
Something macro evolutionists don’t want to deal with.