A flock of parrots teaching each other to swear or a pair of emus being banned from an outback pub. It’s the silly season when I look back at the past 12 months and choose my bird story of the year.
Looking at the clippings I’ve collected during 2020 it’s surprising just how many bird stories make their way onto television, radio and into the national and local press. On my reckoning it’s a surprising three a week.
And for a bird and animal lover there are gems among them which I like to share.
First, the potty-mouthed parrots. A wildlife park in Britain had a big problem on its hands when it was donated, by separate owners, five African grey parrots.
Although the African greys are known to be the most intelligence of all birds, and the best speakers, the park operators did not realise what was in store for them.
The parrots eventually had to be removed from public view after abusing visitors. Billy, Tyson, Elsie, Jade, and Eric took to screeching insults and obscenities like “f… off!” and “fat tart!” at park staff and visitors.
Of course, parrots and other birds which make human sounds – including our own parrots, magpies, butcherbirds and lyrebirds – cannot actually talk because they do not have lips or vocal chords. Instead, by modifying the air flow over their syrinx (located where the trachea divides into the lungs), they learn to mimic human speech without necessarily understanding it.
Some African greys, though, have been trained to associate actions with words and at the Lincolnshire Wildlife Park there is now much debate as to whether the parrots realised they had struck a chord with their swearing, by the reaction it got from recipients.
It appears only one of the parrots had been taught to swear, and it promptly taught the others the swear words.
While the African greys are reputed to be the best swearers, an Australian parrot is credited with the largest vocabulary. A budgerigar called Puck made the Guinness Book of Records by blurting out 1728 words over a six-month period.
The other story catching my attention concerned two emus – named Kevin and Carol – being banned from a pub for what the proprietor described as bad behaviour.
The emus had been among a clutch of eight eggs hatched in a dusty paddock on the outskirts of Yaraka, in western Queensland. Instead of heading out into the bush like their siblings, Kevin and Carol stayed in town, winning the hearts of locals with frequent visits to the cool interior of the Yaraka Hotel.
The owners were finally forced to rope off the entrance and erect a “no emus” sign after the feathered patrons started to steal food – plucking toast from a toaster – and leaving droppings on the floor of the main bar.