Posted on 09/30/2020 2:19:34 PM PDT by DUMBGRUNT
LONDON — A British zoo has separated five foul-mouthed parrots who keepers say have been encouraging one another to swear. Billy, Eric, Tyson, Jade and Elsie joined Lincolnshire Wildlife Centre’s colony of 200 gray parrots in August, and soon revealed a penchant for blue language.
“We are quite used to parrots swearing, but we’ve never had five at the same time,” said the zoo’s chief executive, Steve Nichols. “Most parrots clam up outside, but for some reason these five relish it.”
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
Consider yourself warned...
What a darling angel. Could be Plugs’ running mate.
Maybe they needed a sign for the door.
I knew a guy in college who watched his friend’s parrot for the summer. The parrot’s owner was a big Dodger fan so he taught the parrot to say “Dodgers suck, Dodgers suck.” His friend begrudgingly thought it was kind of funny initially until he realized that phrase had become the parrot’s favorite and the parrot said it all the time.
I don’t get it, but it’s early in the day, plus some jokes are regional.
I wish I could afford an African Grey, and lived where their noise wouldn’t matter. They are top of the line talkers.
They need a lot of toys, attention and distractions, or there may be behavioral problems. If they get too bored, some regress and get grouchy, others may pull their feathers out.
I hear that the Cockatoo is the loudest of all.
parrot sees frozen turkey stripped of its feathers....head cut off
President Andrew Jackson had an interesting one;
http://www.presidentialpetmuseum.com/pets/andrew-jacksons-pet-parrot/
Heh, there was apparently the half eaten carcass of a turkey in the fridge already, which the parrot recognized as a fellow avian who was presumably in there for punishment for some offense other than foul speech...:)
Got it!
OMG THANK YOU! I haven’t laughed that hard in ages!
I wish I could afford an African Grey...
A guy I worked with had one and had many stories of how smart they are and to be careful about what you say around them.
Sounds like my stepson and his friends when got to be about 11 years old.
They discovered swearing and it became like a beloved hobby.
They would just feed off each other.
OH STOP THAT. Parrots are remarkable birds. I used to visit them in the Miami Parrot Sanctuary before some hurricane wiped it out. Delightful to have them fly up to you and look into your eye, and say, “What’s your name?”
A local pet store has a few, but they were abused and are really difficult to live with. So incredibly sad.
Funny!
There is something about talking birds that simply hits squarely on my funny bone.
Gary Larsen did great ones, and while I can't post them here out of respect for his wishes, I can describe them.
When I was a teenager, I knew a girl whose father was a crusty Navy Chief on the base, and they had a Myna bird that was...well, defective! It knew how to say two things, both of which it said constantly, and you could hear it when you walked by the house when they had the windows open. It would say "Son of a bitching Dog!", and would also try to say Merry Christmas...but for some reason, they could never get it to say the whole thing and just gave up. You would hear it say "Merrrrryyyyyyyy..." and that was it!
I went with my brother once to an apartment in a gritty section of a blue collar city to fix a woman's computer, and half of her living room was made into a big walk in cage, and had three parrots in it. She said to stay away from one parrot, a female who she said would bite you if it could get you close enough, but that bird didn't make any noise. However, while I was there, the other two kept up a nearly deafening cacophony of incredible replications of smoke detectors going off, car alarms going off, fire engine, ambulance, and police car sounds at full volume! When I remarked how amazing they replicated the car alarms in particular which were dead on, piercing, and loud, she sheepishly responded that, yeah...her neighbors complained constantly!
I went to a wedding for my boss's daughter, and they sat me at a table reserved for the misfit guests, the ones who didn't really know a lot of people, but knew someone. Since he was a physician who had gone to MIT for computer science before he went to medical school at Harvard, I had an MIT astrophysicist on one side of me, and Irene Pepperberg of Alex the Gray Parrot fame on the other side of me! It was a most interesting wedding. I asked Irene Pepperberg (who I enjoyed talking to) what it was like to live with a parrot for so long, and she said it was like having a willful and stubborn teenager for thirty years! She said when she was dating after her divorce (or maybe before she was married, I don't remember) that when she had a guy visit her at her house, the parrot became extremely jealous and protective!
We had a cockatoo that learned how to whistle for the dog. The dog would come running into the room where the cockatoo was and no one was there. The dog would growl at the bird and leave the room. This went on all the time and the dog would always go running.
This is actually a sad, but all too typical, story. Parrots are very social and need to have a flock, but now they’ve been separated because stupid, selfish people taught them to curse. They don’t even know what they’re doing wrong, but they get punished.
My wife and I love parrots and have 12 rescued birds (including three cockatoos) in our home and support several parrot rescues. People get parrots because they think they’re pretty or they talk, and teach them to curse. But they’re highly intelligent and social, they require a ton of attention, and some can live up to 80 years. They inevitably have to find new homes, and if they curse, many people won’t take them. They end up stuck in shelters forever, or worse, being shoved into back rooms, closets and basements, being abused and punished for what humans taught them. This is like abusing a four-year-old child, and I think deserves the same punishment.
I’ve seen far too many heartbreaking cases of neglect and abuse of birds who had broken wings from being hit or had plucked all their feathers out from stress because of abuse or neglect. Teaching them to curse is more likely to doom them to a life like that. My message to people who think it’s funny to do that is “STOP IT, you f***ing morons!”
Polly wants your......
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