Amazon Parrot Can't Shut Up!

Cheryl, of the UK, has reported that the family Amazon Parrot that was handed down from her great grandmother is driving her crazy. It is, essentially, a ghost whisperer! “He does all these voices of dead people from our family. The bird must be 80 – 90 years old and it remembers everybody that it has been around during that time,” she stated.

One night, when she forgot to cover the birds cage, she heard a strange voice saying, “I’m coming to get youuuuuuu.” It scared her so bad that she called the cops. And, then she realized that the bird was mimicking her dead Uncle Harry! He used to say that when she was very young before he’d pick her up. The police were not too happy when they arrived to check out the incident.

Amazon Parrots can be excellent talkers

Cheryl has realized that her great grandmother must have had a lot of boyfriends. Evidently, the parrot could be the voice over for porn movies as it tells the younger generation about granny’s romps. “I have to shut the door when any friends come over,” reports Cheryl.

If you’d like to teach your parrot to talk (appropriate language, please) check out the speech training CD’s at Chirp n Squawk Bird Supplies.  They’ve even got specialized CD’s for Cockatiels, Parakeets, and even in spanish!

Make a fun foraging toy for your parrot in five minutes or less!  We used a gallon milk jug with a screw on cap for our large Moluccan, Peachy.  We have used empty Coke cans and cereal boxes, too.  We’ve found that when our parrot watches us “load” the container, he becomes more interested. 

Peachy played with this toy for over an hour before finally figuring out that he had to chew the bottom to get the treats!  Usually he grabs the container handle and turns it upside down so that the treats fall in his mouth. 

Always supervise your parrots play when you give him items that require chewing but that can’t be digested.  And, only use clean food containers, never containers that have contained chemicals or cleaning products.

For instance, the Parrot Fish Diet consists primarily of algae extracted from chunks of coral ripped from a reefwith their beak like mouth. The strange thing is that the Parrot Fish pulverizes the coral with grinding teeth in it’s throat to get to the algae-filled polyps inside. But, it’s front teeth are shaped somewhat like a parrot beak.  And, the sand in the Parrot Fishes environment is actually the ground-up, undigested coral they excrete.  A study in Bermuda estimated that parrotfish create a ton of sand per acre of coral reef per year.

Then, there is a weird gender issue.  A Parrot  Fish can actually change its gender repeatedly throughout its life.  Some male parrot fish maintain harems of females. Then, if the dominant male dies, one of the females will change gender and color to become the dominant male.  Not only that.  Parrot fish can change their coloration and patterns varying greatly, even between the males, females, and juveniles of the same species. 

Parrot Fish are omnivores.  They range from 1′ – 4′ depending on the species.  Because of their ability to change colors and patterns throughout their life, scientist are unsure about how many sub-species of parrot fish there are.

Funny Parrot Fish Picture

Perhaps the fact that Parrot Fish have pajama’s is the weirdest thing of all.  Every night, certain species of parrot fish secrete an unusual mucus from an organ in thei head to clothe themselves in a transparent cocoon made of mucous. Scientists hypothesize that the cocoon masks their scent, making them harder for nocturnal predators, such as moray eels.

So, what does this Chirp have to do with parrots?  Ummm.  Well, they are both colorful creatures from tropical areas that have beautiful coloration.

We had a fun little outing today at Tanganyika Wildlife Park in Goddard, KS.  About 10 minutes from my home.  We got to see white tigers, Colous Monkeys, Red Panda’s, Clouded Leopards Red Kangaroo’s and a host of other animals, some displayed in interactive exhibits.  Of course, my favorite exhibit was the interactive Lorikeet’s. 

There were 4 species of Lories in the exhibit.  Rainbow, Purple-capped, Blue Mountain and Scarlett.  The kids sure got a kick out of feeding them nectar.  I’m wondering if it is our popular Goldenfeast NectarGold?!

Oh, BTW, Joe has promised to build me an outdoor aviary like this.  OMG.  I think it was about 40′ x 20′.  Definately bigger than my current bird room!  Really, I don’t think I want a permanent structure.  I’ve got my eye on some outdoor aviaries at www.CagesByDesign.com  I like the break down concept so that I can break them down to protect them from winter elements.  Since SpringAir now has Mosquito Traps, I’ll worry less about West Nile Virus.

Even a little innocent fish doesn’t deserve that fate! I couldn’t take them all but I ended up with one new companion. After getting the little guy home I felt like he needed some friends. Now, I have two fish tanks. My male Betta sits in my office at my part time school social work job. The children love to come in my office and talk to him.

My second larger tank is at home, set up in my hearth room where our family can enjoy the calm and beauty. I’ve taken to placing the Parrot Tower Bird Stands close to the aquarium. Smokey loves it almost as much as he loves his Bird Sitter Video!

I got the dreaded jury duty summons. I was apprehensive, yet excited to learn more about the judicial process. So, at 8:30 a.m. I, along with possibly 200 other people, entered the court house to serve my county. We all were funneled into a Jury Waiting Room and assigned a number. There were like 20 civil cases and 250 criminal cases. I sure didn’t want a criminal case! But, like I said, I was bit excited to learn about the judicial process – plus, I took my computer and a good book so I was able to work and entertain myself. I was scared but I had my “toys.”

Okay, so as far as I could tell, the judges were trying to schedule their week. So, every hour or two, the court clerk would call out numbers of potential jurors who might get to serve on a case. These people got to leave the room with permission. Possibly experience some excitement – but at least they got to leave the room! I got called for a case once. A civil vehicular homicide case was scheduled for trial. I got to leave my cage for about an hour, until the and sit on a wooden pew like seat…. that is until the case was continued. Then, I had to go back to my “cage” and wait.

You know, they look for a jury of your peers. Most people were approachable. One of the guys at the computer station area were I was sitting was diligently working on his website. Yeah, I felt a little kinship. Until I peeked at website name. “Sugar Daddy something or another dot com.” Creepy. Then there was an old fellow that must have had difficulty sitting for long periods of time. He paced back and forth, back and forth in front of me, possibly 50 times throughout the day. Each time trying to make eye contact and snoop into my business. I was more than a bit creeped out. I stopped giving him my polite smile at about 10:30 a.m. The dude with tattoo’s on his neck wasn’t someone that I wanted to start a conversation with either. My point….I was caged with people that I did not feel comfortable with. tLuckily, I was released for lunch. 90 minutes out of the cage.During the afternoon, my number was not called once. At about 4:00 I began to wonder if I’d be able to cope with being stuck in this room for the entire week. Heck. How would I entertain myself for that amount of time. I had a headache. I wanted a beer. Okay, a few beers.

Gez. Is this what caged birds feel like? I think that I may have had more enrichment than most caged pet birds do. At least I got to leave the room for a few minutes for the potential vehicular homicide case and then for lunch. I wonder if our intelligent pet parrots become this frustrated. No wonder parrots want to bite and turn to screaming and feather picking! Excuse me. I need to go get my parrots and let them socialize.

“A football match between Hatfield Town and Hertford Heath fell into chaos, we report, when a parrot that a woman in the crowd had brought along imitated the referee’s whistle, with devastating accuracy. Fortunately, the smooth running of the sport as a whole is not threatened, since the proportion of fans accompanied by parrots remains low. So, once in a while, normally dumb animals are a useful reminder not to take ourselves too seriously.”

Huh? This reporter just doesn’t know parrots! Anyone who understands the intelligence of parrots knows that this parrot figured out how to lead the “football flock” possibly faster than many of the attendee’s.

Parrots thrive on mental stimulation. And, like people, they use their senses of hearing and vision to figure out patterns. Patterns of the world’s processes. The owner of this lucky parrot was providing important enrichment for her pet. How can you do the same for your parrot?