{"id":22120,"date":"2013-11-01T23:49:30","date_gmt":"2013-11-01T23:49:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.firechildren.net\/lightfire\/iamthefirechild\/2013\/11\/01\/my-congo-african-grey-picks-up-stuff-really-fast\/"},"modified":"2013-11-01T23:49:30","modified_gmt":"2013-11-01T23:49:30","slug":"my-congo-african-grey-picks-up-stuff-really-fast","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.firechildren.net\/lightfire\/iamthefirechild\/2013\/11\/01\/my-congo-african-grey-picks-up-stuff-really-fast\/","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"
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My Congo African Grey picks up stuff REALLY fast. Sometimes he\u2019ll piece together stuff that\u2019s hilarious.<\/p>\n

Yesterday I was sitting next to him reading, and he was preening quietly so I told him he was being really good \u2014 giving them attention when they\u2019re not screaming gives them the option of not screaming when they want attention, so I try to do this a lot.<\/p>\n

His response? He said in a friendly tone, \u201cYou\u2019re a really good Nattie. Haha. I love you, bitch.\u201d My husband and I use obscenities as casual endearments.<\/p>\n

Then sometimes he\u2019ll throw stuff together in Engrish-y ways that almost make sense. The other day we were moving, so I put Bongo (the African Grey) and our cockatiel in their travel cages so I could take their huge cages apart to stick in the truck. Bongo didn\u2019t like this, so he decided to lift up his water bowl, which lifts the food cup door, and throw it on the floor. Shocked, I said, \u201cYou douche!\u201d Bongo yeowled, this hilarious gibberishy cat-like sound. My husband came in and asked what happened, and Bongo said, \u201cYes, that became water now.\u201d I want to put that on a shirt with like, a picture of an anthropocentrized flower or something.<\/p>\n

Other times he\u2019ll say stuff that makes sense, logically and grammatically, that he\u2019s put together on his own, but it\u2019s just funny. The other day we were sitting in silence for a while, when Bongo suddenly let out this long sigh and said, \u201cWell, I guess I *am* Bongo,\u201d not in a revelatory tone, but in the same grudging way someone takes responsibility, like when someone says, \u201cI guess I *am* the adult here.\u201d I blinked at him and said, \u201cAlright. How does that make you feel?\u201d and he just gave a weary \u201chm\u201d and started preening, like there was nothing to be done for it so we may as well move on with life.<\/p>\n

On a less philosophical note, a few weeks ago we put the birds to bed, which basically means just putting them in their cages and covering them. Most nights, Bongo does not want to go to bed, but that night he REALLY didn\u2019t want to. He tried to scramble back out of the cage but wasn\u2019t fast enough. He then clung to the side as my husband wrapped the blanket around, and, adopting my husband\u2019s raging-at-Mortal-Kombat voice, yelled, \u201cNooooooooooooooooo!\u201d We cracked up because we couldn\u2019t help it, which he did not seem to appreciate. He fell silent once the blanket was in place. Then we flicked the light switch off, and Bongo said simply, \u201cFuck.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bongo is awesome. Parrots are awesome. When we lived in Texas, there was a breeder who said that her breeding parrots would speak some human to their chicks, like \u201cgood girl\u201d and \u201chere\u2019s some nummies\u201d when feeding them. Bongo uses both when he talks to our cockatiel, which is positively creepy since they hate each other; he\u2019ll climb on Precious\u2019s cage to harass him, and say, \u201cCome here Precious\u201d and snicker, and when Precious starts squawking in outrage, he says, \u201cCalm down, Precious,\u201d or (more rudely) \u201cShut up, Precious.\u201d What\u2019s especially amusing about this is we practically never said those things to Precious because Precious didn\u2019t scream as much as Bongo used to; we\u2019d say \u201ccalm down, Bongo\u201d instead, but he says Precious. He also tries to blame his own screaming on Precious if I\u2019m out of the room: he will scream a lot, and if I eventually say anything back telling him to knock it off, he says \u201cshut up Precious.\u201d And then screams again. (He doesn\u2019t scream much anymore after I started being more alert to enforcing and ignoring certain things.) Precious also does this horrible, scratchy barking sound in imitation of an alarm clock we had when he was a baby, and Bongo will start whistling La Cucaracha whenever Precious starts in on this because Precious LOVES La Cucaracha and will instantly start singing instead.<\/p>\n

It is always interesting to me to see different ways Bongo figures out how to use sounds to change stuff around him. One of my favorite things he likes to do is sit on the back of my wooden office chair, and he will start banging his beak rhythmically on it, which is a normal bird thing, especially with male birds (Precious does it too). But if I start making percussive beat boxing noises, he will keep banging his beak AND make a clicking sound AND put his wings up and dance a bit. The rhythm is shaky but it\u2019s super cute. If he wants to get my attention, he knows I will do that with him for a while. He also likes to sing, \u201cBoooooongo, Booooongo biiiiird,\u201d in it sometimes, just whatever notes he feels like.<\/p>\n

But what\u2019s been REALLY great, is Bongo\u2019s about to turn six, so for the last year or so he\u2019s been transitioning to adulthood more fully. He seems to have gotten much smarter \u2014 like, quicker to understand things \u2014 and mellowed out over this time. The other week I was sick and lying in bed, really tired, but Bongo was freaking out wanting to see me so my husband brought him in the bedroom and left him on the chair I mentioned earlier. Bongo started gibbering and laughing and talking to me a bunch, which cheered me up, and I didn\u2019t want him to feel ignored so I kept up for twenty minutes or so. Finally, though, I was just too tired, but Bongo kept talking. I tried to think of a way to explain, not really knowing if anything would work, but not wanting to upset him. When we put the birds to bed at night, we say, \u201cIt\u2019s bedtime!\u201d so that seemed like an option. Then he knows that \u201cmommy\u201d is me, plus he had started using it as an adjective \u2014 he started saying \u201cwant mommy kiss\u201d a year ago.<\/p>\n

So I try, \u201cIt\u2019s mommy bedtime.\u201d To my surprise, he stops talking abruptly, then says, \u201cOkay.\u201d And he stayed completely silent while I took a nap. When I woke up, he said in a bright British accent, \u201cHullo!\u201d<\/p>\n

Birds are the best.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

nattie<\/a> (via weeaboo-chan<\/a>)<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My Congo African Grey picks up stuff REALLY fast. Sometimes he\u2019ll piece together stuff that\u2019s hilarious. Yesterday I was sitting next to him reading, and he was preening quietly so I told him he was being really good \u2014 giving them attention when they\u2019re not screaming gives them the option of not screaming when they … Continue reading <\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"quote","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2621],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.firechildren.net\/lightfire\/iamthefirechild\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22120"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.firechildren.net\/lightfire\/iamthefirechild\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.firechildren.net\/lightfire\/iamthefirechild\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.firechildren.net\/lightfire\/iamthefirechild\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.firechildren.net\/lightfire\/iamthefirechild\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22120"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.firechildren.net\/lightfire\/iamthefirechild\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22120\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.firechildren.net\/lightfire\/iamthefirechild\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22120"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.firechildren.net\/lightfire\/iamthefirechild\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22120"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.firechildren.net\/lightfire\/iamthefirechild\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22120"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}