mr. personality
June 23, 2007
Let me introduce you to Starbucks. He’s my (roughly) 3-year old African Grey.
I’ve grown up with birds as pets, and didn’t realize that many people find this odd. I think the assumption is that a bird has no personality and doesn’t really interact at all. While maybe this is true of some birds, Starbucks is certainly full of personality.
He says,”Morning!” when I uncover his cage each morning and, “Hello?!” when a phone rings. He shouts, “Come in!” when there’s a knock on the door and, “Go back!” when he starts to walk down the leg of his own cage.
He laughs, coughs, and sneezes.
He mimics cell phone noises, can do the Good, Bad, and the Ugly whistle, and loves doing a Cat Call.
His vocabulary also includes:
- Hello
- Bu-bye
- OK
- Starbucks
- Kisses (followed by kiss noises)
- Hello Beautiful
- Hey Babes!
- Joyce (my wonderful friend and house-help)
- Scoop (when he wants me to rub under his beak)
- Come
- Wanna Come?
- Come on! (in a sassy, annoyed tone)
- Hey buddy!
- Snack
- That’s a good boy!
- Poophead (I like teaching him to talk trash)
And my all-time favorite:
- Chalupa! (when he does his business!)
that is so funny!
i still love that he said “hey, stupid!” to me last year, and then proceeded to laugh. ;) love that bird.
I myself grew up with a parakeet – so I am well acquainted with the personality of birds. Your sounds like a hoot! Parakeets talk, but … it’s more of a mumble. And they don’t pick it up nearly as well as some of their larger cousins. Funny!
Oh man. Chalupa? How did that one happen?
we always laugh about the old taco bell dog saying, “yeah, drop the chalupa”… and it seemed fitting to teach starbucks. he’s got it down pat!
UNBELIEVABLE!!!
LOL!!!!! he’s a beautiful bird. really…… but so dang funny! does he have two different accents depending on who he learned from?!
he actually does! he even does our two voices. it’s so odd because sometimes he has this deep, gruff voice and other times he has this sweet, quiet voice. it’s like he’s got 2 personalities! ha ha.
crazy
amazing! i love african greys! i do, i do!