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The amazing thing is it can learn not only single words but can imitate phrases like "Assalaam Alaikum" (God Bless You), "Dhanee ingey Ta-Ta" (Goodbye, Ta-Ta) etc.
At one period, when we watched the Disney cartoon Tarzan, and at home were shouting "Oo-oo-oo" like Tarzan, the parrot learned that, and was uttering it in exactly the same tone and prolonged way of shouting it! Just amazing. It even imitates noises like "Achoo!" (sneezing), gurgling sound we make when we wash our mouths, etc.
Another amazing thing is it can even imitate voices. For example, it has now learned my mom's name, "Hafee", and because it learned that after hearing my dad calling my mom, when it says "Hafee" it even imitates dad's guttural, masculine voice!
This sometimes results in funny happenings. Sometimes, my mom is alone at home and cooking, and she will be snapped out of her attention when she hears being called by dad! When she searches for him, he won't be there, of course, cos, it's the parrot, she will later realise. The parrot will be keenly observing what she's doing in the kitchen. We don't really know why it decided to call mom, maybe it just wanted to snap mom out of her attention to the cooking and come to it.
We keep the parrot near the kitchen so that it will never feel lonely. We read from a book that parrots will die "of a broken heart" if it is kept "lonely" for long periods. "Get it another (parrot) partner or if you want it to be more attached to you, then keep it singly (with no other parrots of its own or other species) but you must make sure that it's not left alone for longer periods," that's what the instruction book says.
African grey parrots live for about 80 years, the books say, and it is claimed that it's the most intelligent bird around, even much intelligent than either the macaws or cockatoos. I saw a TV programme where a trained African grey parrot was identifying shapes on a computer, as the instructor drew them, saying "triangle", "rectangle" in a baby-like voice!
Plus it is said that they have a very long memory. I read from a book about a bird trainer who had a cat named Candy or something and an African grey parrot. The parrot naturally imitated Candy's name everytime the cat was there. Then the cat died. After about eight years, the owner decided to get a cat which looked exactly like Candy. A surprising thing happened. The parrot started saying "Candy" again when it saw the cat! It remembered the cat's name even after 8 years!
So maybe it is by its choice that my parrot decides to say frequently only those words it learn recently. It doesn't say the words it learnt earlier. For instance, it now has given up saying "Hello", "Shut up", and the old words it used to say, and my family tells me that the most recent words it has learned to say is the names of my family--"Shaahu", for my kid sister, "Hafee" for my mother, "Yaman" for my bro-in-law and "Ahmed" for my father. Maybe it will soon learn my sis Shahy's name too. And it will keep on uttering the names until the novelty wears off and it learns something new!
We have always been curious as to the sex of our parrot. That's why I'm always refering to it as "it." My mom says it must be a female 'cos it's very friendly with the male members of my family! namely me, my bro-in-law Yaman and my dad. It is very keen to climb onto our arms and get out of the house with us whenever we go and pet it. But when my sisters, Shahy and Shaahu, and my mom tries to touch it, it is reluctant! It even makes motions of appearing to bite my mom's hands even though she is the person now who's taking care of it, feeding it regularly, and naturally the parrot should have learnt to love her by now. But still the parrot behaves strangely when my mom and sisters come near it.
There's some truth to the claims that animals and birds can recognise the gender of humans. I read that at zoos, some female monkeys get hostile and act violent towards women who try to touch their partners (the male monkeys) because they get jealous!!! Just imagine.
I had a look at one of the books available at a pet store in Male. Although there were pictures of male and female African grey parrots, it's hard to deduce just by looking at it cos the males and females look so alike. But I have a feeling that my parrot is female cos it "looks" more female! Its face looks female. Heh heh. I don't really know how to explain this but I guess you might have an idea of what I am talking about!
[There's a comment on the MESSAGEBOARD about African Grey Parrots. Click here]
Imagine. I've had that parrot for more than two years, but we still haven't given it a name.
But it now responds when we say "Hello." Maybe it thinks that it's the name we address it.
Actually what happened was when I bought it (for a staggering Rf 2,500 or about US$210) from Vega Point, and took it home, everybody was pretty excited about it cos it was one of those few bird species that talked. Well, not actually talk, but imitated words or phrases that it hears repeatedly.
We all just imagined that since this was a "talking friend", we should also talk to it, say things like Hi to it. So we all ended up saying "Hello" to it everytime we came near it, and that was the first word it started to utter since we brought it home.