Hyacinth macaw

There was a video on Youtube some years ago featuring an african grey with the nastiest vocabulary I have ever heard. It said not only the worst of the worst words known to English slang, but it used them to descriptively detail human anatomy.

It was obvious that these words had not been simply overheard and repeated – they had been taught. The video had a gazillion hits on it. I am by no means prudish, but hearing these words said with an african grey’s perfect clarity, my jaw bounced off the floor.

congo african grey

There are those who might find this kind of thing funny. Let me tell you why it is not:

Often, unforeseen thing happen in life. People lose their jobs and their houses – eventually we all die. Circumstances may dictate that your bird be rehomed. We need to prepare our parrots in many ways for that possibility. They should be well socialized and able to adapt to change. They should NOT be able to vividly describe activities that take place in a bedroom.

A bird that has an offensive vocabulary will be difficult to rehome. It would not be suitable for a family with children or for those who are sensitive to vulgarity. It might be hard to find a willing bird sitter when you want to go on vacation, and it might cause people to not want to visit your home.

Blue throated macaws

Our birds pick up enough colorful language just by overhearing what we say in their presence. Abu, my first umbrella cockatoo, learned the term “shut up” in an innocent way. A friend came by to show me a guitar he had bought for next to nothing from a person who was unaware of its value. When he told me what he had paid, I excitedly said: “Shut. Up.” (in the same way you would say “no way”). That’s all it took. From that point on, whenever the conversation in the house would get lively, Abu would tell us to “shut up”.

One day my daughter’s teacher came by to drop something off and she asked to see the parrot my daughter talked about all day long. She greeted Abu with a cheerful hello and was told to “shut up” in an equally cheerful tone. It was a bit embarrassing.

Umbrella cockatoo

Wild parrots learn about appropriate behavior from their flockmates. For a captive parrot, that responsibility falls to us. Just as is the case with children, we have to demonstrate with our own behavior that which is acceptible, since it will likely be imitated. Ultimately, our bird will pay the price for our lapses in judgement.

Camelot macaw

As I was driving the other day, I was thinking about the huge contribution that Irene Pepperberg and the amazing Alex made to our knowledge of avian cognition. Without she and Alex, and our acceptance of her findings, I wonder if the avian community would be using terms like “enrichment” today.
Life was uncertain for Dr. Pepperberg. She became outcast among her peers. Grants to fund her work were hard to come by and it must have seemed to her that her career was always on the verge of collapse. We owe her a debt of gratitude for her perseverence.
We, who spend our lives with birds, were amazed with Alex’s feats, but I doubt that many of us were very surprised. We routinely watch our birds doing things that defied the scientific world’s former claims. Birds are now ranked alongside small primates in their demonstration of intelligence – a position they have earned. HA!

Blue throated macaw

I wonder where humans went wrong that we saw fit to coin terms like “bird brain” or “dumb animal”. Somewhere we lost sight of the fact that WE are classified first as “mammalian” and as “human” second. We have gotten the idea into our head that because we evolved to develop “big brains” that we are better than the rest of the creatures that inhabit this world.
The fact is, our big brains have made us vulnerable in many ways. Our brain, only 2% of our body weight, uses 20% of our total energy intake, increasing need in that area. Our infants are unusually helpless and remain dependent for a very long time.
If WE are taken out of our “natural” environment and forced to live in the extreme conditions faced by most of our wildlife; foraging for food and determining what is safe and most nutritious to eat, building shelter from the elements, etc., most of us would be dead within a week. When a animal is placed in our environment, they adapt to survive.

Rosebreasted cockatoo

Yes, our big brains have invented some amazing technlogy (some of which we are now dependent on). And the human life expectancy has increased through the advancement of the sciences. But to say that we have evolved as “superior” is just wrong.
Evoution means “change”, not “improvement”. Each species on this planet has adapted over millions of years to become exactly what it needs to be to survive in a changing world environment. All life is perfect, just as it is. And as to the intelligence of these “lower” species, we are not smart enough to judge it with any certainty and are continually surprised to find how little we know.

Storm, blue fronted amazon

In my early days of bird ownership, pre-internet, doing right by my birds was a lot of guess work. As I mentioned in an earlier post, I came upon learning that an all seed diet, then the norm, was inadequate. I discovered this in two ways: 1) by going to the library and studying the diet of my species wild counterparts, and 2) observing them descending on the vegetables on my plate at dinnertime. That was a hard to miss clue.

I didn’t exactly struggle with bird care – I intuitively knew that my birds needed more than what was recommended by the “experts”. I made do with the few bird toys that were available in pet stores and constructed many from household items made of paper, cardboard and wood – I observed what they “got into”. I have very few books that don’t have chewed-on pages – so, obviously, paper is a cockatiel delicasy. Observation is the most effective learning tool we have.

Linus, umbrella cockatoo, snoozing next to a toy I made myself.

Years later, a friend turned me on to the bird forums. I was SO excited. I found a place where I could share stories with fellow bird owners who wouldn’t cringe when I went on about my life with the birds and would laugh when I posted pictures of the sweet potato stuck to my living room wall. I learned untold amounts about different, sometimes easier, ways to acheive what I was trying to accomplish. There were products, toys, gizmos out there that I was completely unaware of.

But after a while, I started to feel inadequate. I felt like my birds were missing out because I didn’t have all the fancy bird things that my new friends had. I started spending money, lots of it. I wanted my birds to have the best of everything. I spent hours filling my shopping cart at online bird stores. I dropped a fortune on a playstand that took up half the living room.

You know what I disovered? My bird were no happier or healthier than they were before having all the bells and whistles. I had been doing things just right all along and I soon returned to my former ways even if they were a bit old-school. They worked, and my birds were thriving. Bub-bye Poop Off, hello again vinegar and water, my old friend. The rarely used Cadillac of a playstand found a new home with a lady with several macaws.

This is where your money is best spent!

In the end, it isn’t about what you don’t have, it’s about how well you make use of what you DO have. I would rather spend my money on excellent food and great toys than on some device that trains me to be lazy. Yes, for years, I had many chair backs fall victim to my birds’ beaks in lieu of a playstand, but isn’t that part of the charm of life with parrots? Okay, maybe not, The point is that we don’t have to go broke because we have birds.

If your bird has a great diet, is fulfilled and enriched, and you have training abilities that ensure a happy co-existance with its human flock, I say you have everything that you need. If someone invents a self-cleaning cage, however, I will surely sell my car to get one.