Today’s blog
Lynn Murphy Mark
Birds of a feather
I have a Facebook friend who owns, or is owned by, a cockatiel named Cookie. Cookie is a frequent visitor to Jim’s page and presumably has a front and center life in his home. He appears to be cuddly as evidenced by him sitting on Jim’s arm or chest. Cookie gets all manner of treats, including little bites of ice cream. In my next life, I want to come back as Jim’s cockatiel.
These birds are actually small parrots, originating in Australia. They are the smallest members of the cockatoo family and were discovered in 1770 in the Outback. They have become so popular as pets that they can no longer be trapped and exported from Australia. If Cookie is any example, they are friendly and fairly docile. They enjoy sitting on their person and can be taught to whistle or sing tunes. This month’s Scientific American magazine features a cockatiel on the cover, with the headline, “Why parrots are taking over the world”. I hope I can get a copy of the article.
A prominent pet in my childhood was our parrot, Pancho. He was mostly green with a head full of red and yellow feathers. I don’t remember when Pancho became a member of our household, but we had him for most of the 12 years that we lived in Mexico. When we were transferred back to the USA, we had to leave him with a trusted friend because he would have been denied entry at the border.
Judging by his size and coloring, I think Pancho would have been called an Amazon parrot. In captivity, their lifespan may be as long as 70 years. I suppose it’s possible that somewhere around Mexico City he is entertaining his people as he did us. Pancho’s favorite thing to do was to insult anyone who walked past his cage by calling them, in Spanish, either a male of a female donkey. He could tell the difference, and appropriately called men, “Burro”, and women, “Burra”. Then he would cackle to himself.
In the 1957 there was a massive earthquake in Mexico City, which sits near several volcanos. Pancho’s favored perch was a piece of 2 x 4 lumber. After the earthquake we realized why he had spent several days before the quake chewing through his perch – he was evidently feeling tiny quakes leading up to the big one and was trying in his way to signal to us that something was wrong. The earthquake was big enough to earn its own name, the Guerrero quake. It registered 7.6 on the scale and caused the destruction of many buildings, and the deaths of over 100 people.
Booze flowed freely in our house, and one favored drink was a martini. It was the 50’s after all. One night someone decided that Pancho might enjoy a sip and offered him their martini glass. To everyone’s surprise, he took a tiny sip and seemingly loved it. He cackled and bobbed his head around and was doing a dance on his perch, asking for more. He kept calling out, “Burro!” to the man who had supplied him. Fortunately he didn’t get any more gin, or we might have had another problem drinker in the house.
These are pretty birds with fine minds. There is a journal, “Behaviour”, that denotes that some parrots could be almost as intelligent as a five year old human. In my mind, that makes them smarter than most people.