Parakeets Talking In Conversational Language

[ZuanNiu]

Surely this is a joke at best! That sounds like a human voice!

My grandmother had a "budgie" and taught him to "talk." Didn't sound like much of anything to me, but whatever made grandma happy. He met his end when he chewed into the wire of her coffee maker. I have a kind of warped mind and thought it was kind of funny, but I felt bad for grandma because she cried for a week.

[Stormcrow]

I'm not seeing any "speaking in context" here. If this is the bird speaking (and I think that in SOME instances it is, as I've owned budgies--but there are definitely moments that don't sound like a budige), he is not carrying on a conversation. The first video (by going to the site and clicking "The Videos") is nonsensical, there's no meaning to the "discussion". Furthermore, I can barely understand what the bird is saying in any of the audio, and I think a large portion if it is hearing what one wants to hear.

Edited March 22, 2010 by ebonycrow

[Corp]

Wow 7 years necro...

So how would a bird understand the concept of the legal system in order to threaten to take them to court?

[aquatus1]

I was wondering what sort of steps the OP (from 7 years ago) would have taken to rule out pareidolia?

It seems like it could be another Benny Lava type of thing.

Edited March 22, 2010 by aquatus1

[Hamlyn]

[Stormcrow]

Why I eyes ya? All the live long day.

[sweetn_low]

It is great to see new videos of Victor! I have been a huge fan of his Youtube videos for quite awhile. As a budgie owner and an educated keeper of birds, I can tell you that the sounds coming from the video do belong to a budgie. He has picked up the accent of the owner, as all mimicking birds do. Birds are quite capable of sounding very human. The idea of someone covering up his beak to obscure the "talking" really makes no difference. Birds don't actually use their beaks to speak. They use their voice box in their neck. My budge and conure both speak with closed beaks regularly. I can't say for certain that budgies are capable of more than clever mimicking but I would like the think it is possible. African greys are certainly extremely intelligent birds that have been shown to feel the emotions of their owner and have slight psychic abilities. It would be unfair to rule budgies out because of their size.

Thanks for sharing the videos

[Antimony]

It would be unfair to rule budgies out because of their size.

Not altogether. After all, there is a correlation betw. body size and brain size.

Am I the only one who finds these recordings incredibly creepy??? Brrrr...Don't know why.

But apart from that. I'm sorry, but I have a very hard time believing this. Could anyone please explain to me how a budgie could be capable of intelligently using, and therefore understanding so many abstract concepts?

[Spyros]

Why I eyes ya? All the live long day.

Maylor back at ya

And Victor talked about cats like you ten years ago Victor's "A Rough Kitty Cat"

Edited March 23, 2010 by ryanrey2010

[Stygean Hugh]

I have an African Gray that I can converse with all day. He talks more than most people, weather he understands what he is saying is for another forum topic all together. I have 10 parakeets that have never "said" anything short of a squawk or tweet. And to be honest, they are so annoying I have considered putting my cat in their cage with them. I have trouble believing any internet video of parakeets (of all birds) talking, especially about god and life. It screams hoax. Any one who has ever owned a parakeet knows they are not the smartest birds.

[Spyros]

I have an African Gray that I can converse with all day. He talks more than most people, weather he understands what he is saying is for another forum topic all together. I have 10 parakeets that have never "said" anything short of a squawk or tweet. And to be honest, they are so annoying I have considered putting my cat in their cage with them. I have trouble believing any internet video of parakeets (of all birds) talking, especially about god and life. It screams hoax. Any one who has ever owned a parakeet knows they are not the smartest birds.

I guess all the animals were out last night. Victor left me some comments before he died to reply to ones like this. He was quite the visionary as well.

Victor's "A Pig Barking"

This was Maylor first recording. I brought him home on Feb 21, 2010 as an adopted budgie. He listened to Victor's recordings for a while and then began to talk in context.

Maylor's Thank You for Your Help

Edited March 23, 2010 by ryanrey2010

[MissMelsWell]

Sigh... Source.

The voice is not that of a birds either, it is quite clearly an electronically synced human voice.

I am something of an expert on bird keeping... although, I have little experience with budgies (never even had one), Ill be up front about that. However, given all my experience (10 years of breeding and keeping parrots, I was a top ACS cockatiel breeder in the USA) I can be 99% certain that is a budgies voice. They frequently have very human toned voices and surprising to most people, they certainly, on average, have vocabularies around 300 words or so. However, most budgie keepers don't realize their birds are talking because their voices do sound odd and scratchy almost. Surprisingly, among parrot experts, budgies are regarded as the best talkers of the parrot world, unfortunately, unlike the african gray, budgies are hard to understand so they often don't get the recognition they deserve for their intelligence and abilities.

Are you, therefore, an expert on budgie sounds? Could you honestly tell the difference? Would you let yourself tell the difference wen you have such a clear bias from the very start?

It took me very little time to cue my ear into "Maylor" ... whilst I have no doubt that he has a fantastic abilty to speak, unfortunately, I believe there is a lot of wishful exaggeration in the translations. Here's why.

Even the larger parrots who are known for their clear talking abilities will mix their clear words with human tonal inflections. My macaw did it all the time. For example, he would, at 4:30pm every day break into his "Talk Radio" act. For about 20 minutes, he'd launch into his interpretation of a talk radio show, using all the human tonal inflections of a "caller and host" ... but he wasn't saying a clear word ever. I guess the best thing I could compare it to, would be how the adults sound in a Peanuts cartoon. You could even hear him do the tonal inflections of "Hi caller, you're on the air" then he'd switch his "tone", and say something to the effect of "first time caller, long time listener" . People in my home would say "Is there a radio on somewhere?" but the bird wasn't actually saying anything, but you could in your head almost substitue what you were hearing with real words. They were conversations we'd both heard before, but he was just imitating the sound of the conversation, and saying nothing. If you stretched your imagination, you could almost be convinced that he was saying something contextual.

I believe that's what Maylor is doing as well in most cases... he's mixing his real known words with tonal inflections. The listener is filling in the gaps--that's human nature.

As far as parrots speaking in context? I know they can. Some people will tell you they're only imitating sound, but I SO beg to differ. Deal with a 2.5 pound parrot that's screaming at you that he wants eggs for breakfast, then try to give him something other than eggs, and watch him pitch a fit throwing his unwanted breakfast at ya... you'll be convinced that he really really wanted eggs. LOL. My macaw was famous for that. It was hardly a happy accident, because he knew what he wanted, asked for it, and if he didn't get it, there was hell to pay.

He was also famous for picking locks (oh ya, he could pick a combination lock!) then go on a walk-about the whole time telling himself and anyone that would listen what a bad bird he was. That however was NOT in context (although HILARIOUS) because he was just repeating what I usually said to him when I found him out wandering around the house unsupervised.

I'll listen to Maylor a bit more later today.... I have little time this morning and poor speakers on my laptop, but I'll check him out from work, where I have some headphones. I'll reserve the right to change my opinion after hear more.

[MissMelsWell]

Ok, I've listened to more clips...

I'm convinced I was correct... there is some VERY liberal interpretation going on here. Aka, filling in the blanks.

Victor and Maylor are quite accomplished talkers, and have sizable clear vocabularies, however, they aren't really speaking in context. Although I wish I could say they were. They mostly appear to be tonally interpreting something they've heard in the past that caught their fancy. A TV program, radio show, a book on tape, conversations from around the house. The words they're choosing are words they know mixed with those baffling tonal inflections that sound like words but aren't making us think we're hearing something incredible, but we really aren't. (although it's totally fun).

I hear Maylor and Victor saying a lot of things that are common favorite phrases of most parrots, peppered with nonsensical tonal inflections to mimic human conversation, and some unique vocabulary choices as well.

Don't get me wrong, they're VERY good talkers, but they aren't as incredible as some would like to think. They aren't typical, but they aren't incredible either. I wish I could say otherwise.

(and undeadskeptic, usually I agree with you, however, in this case, the beak not moving with the bird at times is normal, birds talk from their throats, and their beak movement has little to do with their actual ability to speak and rarely has much to do with forming their words... my parrots could speak entire words without their beaks moving at all... )

Edited March 23, 2010 by MissMelsWell

[MissMelsWell]

Not altogether. After all, there is a correlation betw. body size and brain size.

Am I the only one who finds these recordings incredibly creepy??? Brrrr...Don't know why.

But apart from that. I'm sorry, but I have a very hard time believing this. Could anyone please explain to me how a budgie could be capable of intelligently using, and therefore understanding so many abstract concepts?

The simple answer is that he isn't understanding any abstract concepts. Not even my large parrots were wholly capable of that. I even had some cockatiels that came off as quite brilliant, but abstract concepts? No, not really--or not with any predictibility or regularity. Although, at times, they had their moments where it would have been very difficult if not impossible for me to deny that they can at times be in context.

Some of my male cockatiels, and most of my large parrots were capable of some abstract thought and speech. Occasionally, they would string together some pretty remarkable phrases. I had a blue crown Conure that was obsessed with having conversations about turtlenecks. Why? I don't know. He heard the word turtleneck somewhere, liked how it sounded, and would string together words that mostly didn't make sense--all about turtlenecks. If you used your imagination, you could imagine that he was profoundly expounding on the merits and philosophy of high necked winter wear, but ummm... no that's not what was going on at all. LOL.

Another example of what could be considered IN CONTEXT: On rare occasions, the macaw would be particularly happy when he was out and about and playing on his giant "jungle gym". If he wanted my attention he'd say some variation of: "Happy boy! Happy boy, Tickle Tickle!" If I ignored him, he'd say "Come have a tickle!" when I walked over to him, he'd throw his wings out, I'd pretend to tickle him under his wing, and he'd mimic my laugh. That was fairly abstract, he'd say something to me to get a reaction, and when I reacted appropriate to his wishes, he'd reward me with his giggles; and if I didn't react in the way he wanted, he'd become increasingly obnoxious. I'd consider this fairly abstract, and semi-contextual.

Now, when the phone rang in my house, I'd have 200 parrots all screaming "HELLO!" ... Did they really want to answer the phone and have a chat? No, they just understand that when the phone rings, the human picking up the phone says Hello.... and ALL parrots love to say Hello... never knew one that didn't. It's kind of like the vast majority of birds love the phrase Pretty bird... and they all love telling themselves how pretty they are, frequently inserting their own name. Do they really understand the context of what they're saying? No. They really don't. They just know that is something they hear their keepers say to them, and they like how it sounds. Nothing more.

And, just to answer your question a bit more clearly, budgies are regarded as the best talkers of the parrot world and generally do have the largest vocabularies. For many years, the unofficial world record for the most number of clear words known by any bird belonged to an English Budgie who lived in the UK. He appeared to have more than a 450 CLEAR word vocabulary.

Edited March 23, 2010 by MissMelsWell

[theGhost_and_theDarkness]

I had two budgies when I was younger that never spoke a word. They were way too obsessed with each other to care about anything else. My cockatiel, on the other hand. . .that bird was amazing. He died very young, from a stroke.

I believe he was just around a year or two old, but he could do colors, shapes, numbers, talk up a storm. . .if he saw one of our cats doing something bad, he'd be sure to tell us about it later or call one of us into the room with a "Simba's (or whatever one it was) being a bad cat!" And, sure enough, there they would be, doing something bad. That, to me, showed that he knew what the words meant, at least to some degree. . .seeing as though there were several things the cats could do that would be considered bad, some of which he never had to see us scold for. Needless to say, the cats hated him.

Aw. . .I can't talk about it any more. . .I miss my birdie. I've only had one other one since him and the budgies died, and that was a Quaker. Meanest, nastiest bird ever.

And that's some really interesting information, MMM. . .I always thought budgies weren't the best talkers. . .hmm. . .I've been thinking about getting another bird. . but I really want another cockatiel because of the great bond I had with my other one. They don't sell them around here, though.

Budgies are much easier to come by. It just worries me about getting another one of them because we were told when we got our first one that they need to have a "mate" or they could die (though, I will admit that sounds like a myth). . . and I'd like to be able to actually have a bird that pays me some attention and isn't stuck up his girlfriends butt all the time.

[MissMelsWell]

I had two budgies when I was younger that never spoke a word. They were way too obsessed with each other to care about anything else. My cockatiel, on the other hand. . .that bird was amazing. He died very young, from a stroke.

I believe he was just around a year or two old, but he could do colors, shapes, numbers, talk up a storm. . .if he saw one of our cats doing something bad, he'd be sure to tell us about it later or call one of us into the room with a "Simba's (or whatever one it was) being a bad cat!" And, sure enough, there they would be, doing something bad. That, to me, showed that he knew what the words meant, at least to some degree. . .seeing as though there were several things the cats could do that would be considered bad, some of which he never had to see us scold for. Needless to say, the cats hated him.

Aw. . .I can't talk about it any more. . .I miss my birdie. I've only had one other one since him and the budgies died, and that was a Quaker. Meanest, nastiest bird ever.

'Tiels can surprise ya... I had some that did similar things, although, I could never be sure exactly whether or not they were really in context or getting lucky. Mine used to like to tattle on my daughter.

And you had a Quaker? LOL... yep, that's about the most obnoxious bird breed ever... in most cases (there are exceptions). There's a reason there are HUGE colonies of wild Quakers in almost every state now... they're the offspring of former pets people let go because they were impossible to keep. No parrot that's communal living and colony based should be kept as a pet. (I could go on and on about that... Quakers are semi-unique in their living and mating habits. They're one of the few parrot breeds that don't pair bond... they're total swingers. Quakers are illegal to keep as pets in a lot of states because of this.)

And that's some really interesting information, MMM. . .I always thought budgies weren't the best talkers. . .hmm. . .I've been thinking about getting another bird. . but I really want another cockatiel because of the great bond I had with my other one. They don't sell them around here, though.

I'd defintely recommend another cockatiel...a MALE one. The hens almost never talk and are FAR more reserved. You definitely have cockatiel breeders in Alabama, I knew several at one time. I know an award winning breeder in Southern Missouri too (Lee's Summit?) and MANY in the Orlando Florida area... all who will ship you a pet. Pick up a copy of Bird Fancy, if you find a breeder near you listed in the magazine and want to know something about them, just flip me a PM. I probably know them or know of them.

My other suggestion? Think about getting a Meyers or Senegal parrot. They're a nice size, they aren't overly loud or messy, and they're goofy charming, but don't necessarily talk much, if at all (mine rarely did). But they are one of the most affectionate, easy to care for "large" breeds I've ever come across--don't let "large breed" mislead... they're actually quite short, but heavy and solid bodied. Rougly the same size as a tiel, but much more solidly built. They're an african breed, so they have the stubby tail like other african parrots, like the African Grey.

Budgies are much easier to come by. It just worries me about getting another one of them because we were told when we got our first one that they need to have a "mate" or they could die (though, I will admit that sounds like a myth). . . and I'd like to be able to actually have a bird that pays me some attention and isn't stuck up his girlfriends butt all the time.

It's not just a myth, it's an out and out lie. They do better on their own kept as single pets. I usually tell people to avoid mirrors in any birds cage as well. What we see as fanciful preening and obsession with themselves in mirrors is actually misdirected aggression. Only the most passive birds should have mirrors and even then you could be creating a problem. I wish bird toy makers would take those things off the market.

[Hamlyn]

I think we should get to name this phenomenon where animal vocalization plus pareidolia adds up to the impression of meaningful speech.

"Benny Lava Phenomenon" works, but I suggest that "Oh Don Piano" is a slightly better fit, since it involves actual animal vocalization and is a real example of the phenomenon.

So that when somebody hears English words in ambiguous vocalizations we can say "that seems to be a case of Oh Don Piano."

:D :D

In any case, minor bun engine made Benny Lava.

[MissMelsWell]

Here's one of my favorite YouTube talking parrots. Riley the Eclectus parrot. Brenda, his owner, is giving him context through the video, but Riley really doesn't have any idea what he's talking about. One of the reasons Riley is a good speaker is because Brenda has a VERY animated voice with a lot of sing-song inflection. You can hear points in the video where Riley just using tonal inflections to fill in the gaps of the conversation pattern that sound like words. Brenda usually responds with a chuckle (like it's an inside joke) or a "is that right?" or "you're silly".

I love this little dude and Brenda jus cracks me up. LOL

Edited March 23, 2010 by MissMelsWell

[Spyros]

Here's one of my favorite YouTube talking parrots. Riley the Eclectus parrot. Brenda, his owner, is giving him context through the video, but Riley really doesn't have any idea what he's talking about. One of the reasons Riley is a good speaker is because Brenda has a VERY animated voice with a lot of sing-song inflection. You can hear points in the video where Riley just using tonal inflections to fill in the gaps of the conversation pattern that sound like words. Brenda usually responds with a chuckle (like it's an inside joke) or a "is that right?" or "you're silly". I love this little dude and Brenda jus cracks me up. LOL

When I woke up this morning I was a little discouraged when I saw all these negative comments. I tried to deal with it in humour and then went to work. When I got home I did a recording and translation of Maylor and this is what he had to say about it. I even did the video already.

This is what Maylor said in the video and believe me I would have no reason to try and pull a hoax like some of you claim. The insults some of you are giving are abuse. And Maylor doesn't like it. Do the right thing. You'll see later it'll be good. (???- A persons name) you know what just happened. Animals came out.

One last little note before I sign off here. If you use headphones and are totally distracted you should be able to pick up much of what he is saying. There are some very faint areas in the recording that are difficult to hear so the headphones have to be good ones. Even if you only pick up half of what he is saying the first time, you may pick up more the next time.

Often if we don't want to believe in something or feel we have reason to doubt something is possible, we will look for the negative or disregard it all together. When we open our mind up to the possibilities and seek what we can understand, then we can be alert and hear or see all the miracles that God has to offer in this wonderful world.

By they way budgies have the largest vocabularies of any of the parrots in the Guinness World book of records and I believe Maylor will be able to break that record one day as he develops in his vocalizations.

Edited March 23, 2010 by ryanrey2010

[Hamlyn]

I don't know what insults or abuse you are referring to, but after listening to the recording, I think this is a clear case of Oh Don Piano.

[Stormcrow]

Oh Don Piano it is.

[Moonie2012]

When I woke up this morning I was a little discouraged when I saw all these negative comments. I tried to deal with it in humour and then went to work. When I got home I did a recording and translation of Maylor and this is what he had to say about it. I even did the video already.

This is what Maylor said in the video and believe me I would have no reason to try and pull a hoax like some of you claim. The insults some of you are giving are abuse. And Maylor doesn't like it. Do the right thing. You'll see later it'll be good. (???- A persons name) you know what just happened. Animals came out.

I wanted to buy into this whole thread (I really truly did) when I first saw it as I thought it could be somehow feasible, but after reading it (especially the quote above) now I know it's nothing of the sort.

The little video you made of your bird responding to "insults and abuse" in a thread on a internet forum simply takes the cake. This thing is a joke - you're hearing what you WANT to hear and you've been listening to it for so long you don't know how NOT to hear it.

15 minutes of fame => over.

Edited March 23, 2010 by Moonie2012

[Stygean Hugh]

I am something of an expert on bird keeping... although, I have little experience with budgies (never even had one), Ill be up front about that. However, given all my experience (10 years of breeding and keeping parrots, I was a top ACS cockatiel breeder in the USA) I can be 99% certain that is a budgies voice. They frequently have very human toned voices and surprising to most people, they certainly, on average, have vocabularies around 300 words or so. However, most budgie keepers don't realize their birds are talking because their voices do sound odd and scratchy almost. Surprisingly, among parrot experts, budgies are regarded as the best talkers of the parrot world, unfortunately, unlike the african gray, budgies are hard to understand so they often don't get the recognition they deserve for their intelligence and abilities.

It took me very little time to cue my ear into "Maylor" ... whilst I have no doubt that he has a fantastic abilty to speak, unfortunately, I believe there is a lot of wishful exaggeration in the translations. Here's why.

Even the larger parrots who are known for their clear talking abilities will mix their clear words with human tonal inflections. My macaw did it all the time. For example, he would, at 4:30pm every day break into his "Talk Radio" act. For about 20 minutes, he'd launch into his interpretation of a talk radio show, using all the human tonal inflections of a "caller and host" ... but he wasn't saying a clear word ever. I guess the best thing I could compare it to, would be how the adults sound in a Peanuts cartoon. You could even hear him do the tonal inflections of "Hi caller, you're on the air" then he'd switch his "tone", and say something to the effect of "first time caller, long time listener" . People in my home would say "Is there a radio on somewhere?" but the bird wasn't actually saying anything, but you could in your head almost substitue what you were hearing with real words. They were conversations we'd both heard before, but he was just imitating the sound of the conversation, and saying nothing. If you stretched your imagination, you could almost be convinced that he was saying something contextual.

I believe that's what Maylor is doing as well in most cases... he's mixing his real known words with tonal inflections. The listener is filling in the gaps--that's human nature.

As far as parrots speaking in context? I know they can. Some people will tell you they're only imitating sound, but I SO beg to differ. Deal with a 2.5 pound parrot that's screaming at you that he wants eggs for breakfast, then try to give him something other than eggs, and watch him pitch a fit throwing his unwanted breakfast at ya... you'll be convinced that he really really wanted eggs. LOL. My macaw was famous for that. It was hardly a happy accident, because he knew what he wanted, asked for it, and if he didn't get it, there was hell to pay.

He was also famous for picking locks (oh ya, he could pick a combination lock!) then go on a walk-about the whole time telling himself and anyone that would listen what a bad bird he was. That however was NOT in context (although HILARIOUS) because he was just repeating what I usually said to him when I found him out wandering around the house unsupervised.

I'll listen to Maylor a bit more later today.... I have little time this morning and poor speakers on my laptop, but I'll check him out from work, where I have some headphones. I'll reserve the right to change my opinion after hear more.

I found some info backing up the claim that they are in the top 5 talking bird species in the world. link ; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budgerigar. I had never heard this before, so yes I'm surprised.

BUT I also found info stating that it is usually males that learn to talk. Among half of the ten I have are males. Why is it that they would not learn to talk in a house hold with a talking bird? We obviously talk to our animals.

Also, why is this on the um discussion if its not a um?

[MissMelsWell]

I found some info backing up the claim that they are in the top 5 talking bird species in the world. link ; http://en.wikipedia....iki/Budgerigar. I had never heard this before, so yes I'm surprised.

BUT I also found info stating that it is usually males that learn to talk. Among half of the ten I have are males. Why is it that they would not learn to talk in a house hold with a talking bird? We obviously talk to our animals.

Also, why is this on the um discussion if its not a um?

Yes it is usually the males that learn to talk, the females of most parrot breeds are often far more reserved, even stoic. They CAN talk, and some do, but in general, they don't very often and generally a lot less than their male counterparts.

Your parakeets might be talking, you're just not hearing it really. Maylor and Victor shown in the videos look to be English Budgerigars, not your standard garden variety budgie, they're a sub-breed of the budgie parakeet. They tend to be slighly more skilled verbally when it comes to clarity. But, standard parakeets are skilled too, they are just very difficult to understand with their screechy, high-pitched, often scratchy voices.

It also might have something do to with the environment you keep them in as well. If you don't spend a great deal of personal time with them, and they live in their "flock" they might be less apt to speak clearly, they're not getting the one to one education that they frequently need. They dont' need English to communicate with their cage mates. I kept my "flock" of cockatiels in a really really big flight. Some of them were barely hand tame... those 'tiels almost never talked, although they were kept in the same aviary as my pet macaw, pet blue crown conure, pet cockatiel, and Timnah african gray... all who were prolific talkers. The flock tiels simply didn't pay attention and didn't get the one on one conversation and interaction with me as my pets did.

I think I found over the years that the birds rarely taught each other to talk.... but each one did have their own personality, and picked up on words they especially liked. Almost always, those were words that were said with great emotional stress on them (which is why many parrots turn out to be potty mouths) or with a real sing-song kind of cadance, which is why many birds love to sing songs. They often will mimic women and children before they mimic men due to the high tonal inflections in the voice... if you have a flatter more monotone way of speaking, your birds might not learn to talk as well as someone who is more animated.

They also almost never learn from tapes, TV, radio, or recordings... but they WILL learn those non-sensical tonal inflections from those mediums and will fill in their speech with word-sounding gobbly-gook. All my birds did that.

Context is so difficult to determine... they can accidentally be in context, or you can be fooled into context; like my macaw's "bad bird" when he was doing something clearly bad... but he only did that because that's what I said to him. So I don't consider that context, but conditioning and mimicry. When they ask for something, expect you to respond, and when they dont' get what they asked for (or do get it), they respond in an emotional way. That to me is more context.

My conure would rap about his turtleneck all the time... he didn't know what a turtleneck was... but often, his ramblings would make some kind of esoteric sense if I allowed it to in my own perception, but really, it was garbage in and garbage out. LOL. (I loved that bird, great talker, and positively NEUROTIC as well LOL) That little gem of a dude called a police officer who pulled me over for speeding a really really bad word... LOL. That sherif was less than impressed. Good old McKinley kept things really interesting at times. LOL.

This thread is like 7 years old... it was necroposted, but it's still interesting none-the-less. There has been a debate regarding parrots and context for a LONG time. I tend to fall on the side that they can at times be in context and communicate in a verbal volley with meaning to their humans... but I think it's fairly rare and inconsistant.

Edited March 23, 2010 by MissMelsWell

[MissMelsWell]

When I woke up this morning I was a little discouraged when I saw all these negative comments. I tried to deal with it in humour and then went to work. When I got home I did a recording and translation of Maylor and this is what he had to say about it. I even did the video already.

This is what Maylor said in the video and believe me I would have no reason to try and pull a hoax like some of you claim. The insults some of you are giving are abuse. And Maylor doesn't like it. Do the right thing. You'll see later it'll be good. (???- A persons name) you know what just happened. Animals came out.

One last little note before I sign off here. If you use headphones and are totally distracted you should be able to pick up much of what he is saying. There are some very faint areas in the recording that are difficult to hear so the headphones have to be good ones. Even if you only pick up half of what he is saying the first time, you may pick up more the next time.

Often if we don't want to believe in something or feel we have reason to doubt something is possible, we will look for the negative or disregard it all together. When we open our mind up to the possibilities and seek what we can understand, then we can be alert and hear or see all the miracles that God has to offer in this wonderful world.

By they way budgies have the largest vocabularies of any of the parrots in the Guinness World book of records and I believe Maylor will be able to break that record one day as he develops in his vocalizations.

I understand that you think Maylor is very very special.... and I will give you that he is a good talker... but honestly, if that's the case, then all my birds were just like that! What I heard were some very clear words, words I'd expect that he would know. Others, were that gobbly-gook fill in language which you can fill in with just about anything your imagination will allow it to (a type of paraidolia). I could have done the same when my macaw launched into his Talk Radio routine every day. However, I know, there were no words there, just a mimicry of the tone and sound of a talk radio show. He was hilarious... he'd do both the host and caller in different inflections so you could tell one from the other. As far as I could tell, it was a combination of the Tom Lykis show and Rick Miller. LOL.

I also know from experience that no amount of evidence to the contrary will convince you that anything other than what you think is happening. That's what happens when people suspend logic and reason in favor of what they want to hear. I do it too at times. Pet owner are notorious about that with their pets; they love them so much and want so much to be very connected to them and I get that, I've DONE that. But, the reality is that while Maylor is very special, he's not that unusual, other than having a rather wonderful vocabulary of clear words, but in all honesty, only about a 1/3rd of his words were actually clear in any video, and often they're the SAME words from video to video...

I wouldn't get too upset about the nay-sayers.. they have a point, but they aren't always very diplomatic about their points.