From the Dept. of Critter Play

Posted on January 14, 2012 by Amanda Painter

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7 Responses to From the Dept. of Critter Play

  1. luckydriver luckydriver says:
    January 15, 2012 at 4:30 pm

    This also just jogged my memory about a book I read a while back by Irene Pepperberg called “Alex & me”. It’s about a research scientist and her African Grey parrot. I really enjoyed reading it, mainly because I think it is incredible how much human beings underestimate our feathered friends, but also because the book is just really interesting, and I am pretty sappy about animals. Here is the link if anyone has any interest:

    http://www.amazon.com/Alex-Me-Scientist-Discovered-Intelligence–/dp/0061673986/ref=sr_1_14?ie=UTF8&qid=1326662651&sr=8-14

  2. jinspace says:
    January 15, 2012 at 3:28 pm

    Wow! I love this. Birds are super smart, and they know how to be funny, too.

    Friends of mine had a parakeet who was brilliant. She used to talk a blue streak and the words were clear as a bell (unusual for a parakeet). She called people by name and each spring she’d learn the new Yankees lineup without ever confusing one year with another. To her it was just a new song, I suppose. To learn new words she’d rest her beak on the lower lip of the person talking, and if you stopped talking too soon for her liking, she’d give you a little nip to keep you going until she’d figured out what she wanted to learn. She loved hanging out with humans, was loads of fun and really a member of the family.

    My cousin has two parrots who learned the phrase “sleepy-bye!” in a sweet little sing-song voice, which is how they get put to bed each night. Once, during a pretty big party, about 20 minutes or so after being put “to bed” for the night, one of them got fed up with our fairly loud chatter and let us know it. She positively growled from her cage in a low voice dripping with sarcasm: “Slee-pee BYE!!” Which, of course, prompted a huge oburst of laughter from we mere humans in the next room.

  3. luckydriver luckydriver says:
    January 15, 2012 at 8:12 am

    Thanks, Lokta!

  4. Huffy Huffy says:
    January 15, 2012 at 2:57 am

    Thanks Lokta! Absolutely fascinating! A modern day Konrad Lorenz… Perhaps my Mr and Mrs Crow would be interested in taking English lessons from me…but I think they were just after the olives on my olive tree – I have a tiny terrace but huge olive tree – which the crows and blackbirds just love.

  6. Huffy Huffy says:
    January 14, 2012 at 8:12 am

    Nice one Amanda! I came across this one too. It really is quite amazing, isn’t it? A couple of crows briefly alighted on my terrace wall the other month – I think they were a mr and mrs. I was a bit terrified at first (we’ve been ruined by Hitchcock) – but then I relaxed and felt truly honoured by their brief appearance.

  7. luckydriver luckydriver says:
    January 14, 2012 at 8:12 am

    I am totally fascinated by things like this. A while back, I saw a program on PBS that dealt with assessing the intelligence of crows. Not only do they have incredible skills with tools, it turns out they have excellent facial recognition skills that allow them to determine who might be a threat to their nest and their young. If a person walked beneath a nest just once while performing some kind of threatening action, the crows would remember and then dive bomb that person the next time they even walked near the nest. The best part was that the birds were able to communicate that information to other crows in the area, so if those other birds witnessed that person in the area, they too would kick up quite a fuss. Bird teamwork!!

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