Chatty Birds

By Stephanie Logue

“You and your birds! They are so boring,” my friend said. But my house was anything but dull.

I sneezed.

“Bless you, oh, bless you!” said Buddy, my budgie. Budgies are small Australian birds. People often call them parakeets.

“Good morning,” called Mork, my cockatiel.

Talking birds can copy human speech. They may not know what they are saying. But birds can match certain words and phrases with actions. So at times it seems as though they understand. The birds can say funny and surprising things by chance.

Gandy, my Philippine blue-naped parrot, coughed.

“Should you call the vet?” my friend asked.

“He’s just copying my cough,” I said, laughing. Gandy laughed loudly. He sounded just like me.

Teaching birds to talk takes a lot of time and patience. I work with my birds every day. They have learned hundreds of words.

Buddy perched on my finger for a talking lesson. I held Buddy close to my face and said, “Pretty bird.”

Buddy repeated, “Pretty bird.”

“Good boy!” I praised. Then I continued, “My name is Buddy.”

Buddy bit me on the lip.“Ouch!” I screamed.

“Ouch!” Buddy repeated. The lesson ended.    

Buddy knows more than 225 words, including many nursery rhymes. Sometimes he mixes up the things he’s learned to say. I taught him to say, “Here come Pete and Marge” (my parents’ names). One day he said, “Here come Pete and Humpty Dumpty Marge.” Mom was not happy. But Buddy had just gotten mixed up.

The phone rang, waking Gandy from his nap. “Stop that!” he shouted. The phone call was from my mother.

I held the phone next to Gandy’s ear so he could say hello. He pecked at the mouthpiece. Then he asked, “Are you gonna talk?”

Mork chewed the perch he was sitting on. Later, I heard a crash. I found Mork and his broken perch on the bottom of the cage. “Hi!” he said happily.

Gandy called, “How are you feeling, Mork?”

“Oh, he’s fine,” I answered.

At bedtime, I covered the birds’ cages. Buddy climbed onto his swing. Gandy tucked in his foot. Mork softly said, “Good night.”

As I got into bed, I said, “Birds boring? Hardly!”

		In the wild, some male birds do best if they learn many different songs. Female birds often look for older mates. The more songs a male bird knows, the older (and more fit) he seems. So a male who is a good mimic is the female’s first choice as a mate.