Pigwidgeon the idiotic African Grey parrot taught herself how to meow convincingly, and it's crazy-making. Last night I was cooking furiously, trying to get a spinach lasagna done in time for the children to eat before bedtime, and I was continually interrupted by stressed-out, trapped cat-sounding meows. As a reasonably dutiful and doting cat owner, every time I heard one of those I'd automatically spring into action, looking for a cat in trouble, before realizing, "It's just the stupid bird again." Finally I called the children and made them take Pigwidgeon away upstairs so I could finish the lasagna in peace.
And then the Amazon parrot, the one who is not supposed to be a good talker, showed off with a new phrase. "Iris! Lola! Come here! Iris! Lola! Come here!" she shouted, mimicking me perfectly. The children, who refer to her as "the Evil Dinosaur", ignored her (unlike their poor stupid mother, they can tell when a sound is made by a parrot and then ignore it accordingly). I made them go to the living room and and acknowledge that she'd called them, to be polite.
3 comments:
Back in the good old days my grandparents managed a rich person's estate when they went away on on one of their world wide trips. Not only were there a few dogs, but a parrot.
The parrot leanred to mimick the sound of the dogs barking in the distance. So my grandmother would go to the door and yell for them to come home. They would normally be asleep and come truding intot he kitchen wondering why they were being yelled for.
I had a coworker whose parrots learned to imitate the way he whistled for his dogs. The parrot would whistle and the dogs would go running into the room with the parrot cage, looking for him, only to sheepishly trudge back to the room they'd been in.
i need more parrot stories.
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