If you think parrots are simply mimics that fly, you're wrong. Tune in and learn about these colorful friends today.
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Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of I Heart Radio Cale and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, and there's Charles W. Trills a Lot Bryant, and there's Jerry Roland, who's bright plumage is sticking me in the face right now. And this is that was a great part. Uh. And this is Stuff you Should Know about parrots, which is a surprisingly interesting topic. Chuck. Nice one, nice pick. That's good. Just do that, dude, the whole time. We're gonna we're gonna hammer out like a means of communication, just with that sound throughout this episode. Okay, oh, man'd be kind of great. You already broke character, Chuck, I think to the relief of every single person listening to So you were surprised, huh yeah, I mean, I know parents are knee or whatever, but I and I knew that they were probably one of the smartest animals, or some of them are. Some are just you know, dumb as door knobs, but there are plenty that are really smart. They make up for the really dumb ones. Um. But I just I know I didn't know that they were quite this this neat and also one of my new favorite things is like watching little happy birds run like hop around and sing. And there's a lot of parrots that do that. It's like one of their traits, Like they're really cute. Uh kind of animal. I love it. In your mid forties, you're turned onto the joy of birds chirping and jumping around. I didn't say I was turned on by it, turned onto it. Oh gosh, there's a big difference between those two. Uh. Have you ever had any experience with parrots or known bird people? Uh? No, so tangentially I was um UM's grandma has or had a parrot. She passed a year or so ago, but her parrot is still alive. Um she had a couple, Brutal and Brutus, and Brutal was fine, but Brutus terrorized you me when she was growing up, I mean like terrorized her. And they didn't see her for many years. And when I was when I visited and met her grandma and Brutus, Brutus like at first was just kind of like oh hum. And then he you could tell the moment he recognized Jumie and he lunged at her. He was like, you, I remember you. After all those years, he still just did not like umi for some reason. Yeah. I mean, I've got some parrots and bird stuff that I'll pepper throughout when it's applicable. But you know, bird folks, I mean, if you're a bird person. My experience has been bird people are just sometimes a little eccentric. Oh yeah. Bird people are definitely a certain type, just like cat people are a certain type and dog people are certain types. But there's a lot of people and dog people sure. Yeah, yeah, I think that's one of the things that makes bird people seem eccentric is there's far fewer of them. But you know, one of the things I didn't realize it could be. That could be also like the extensive stacks of paperback fantasy novels that just line their floors throughout their house. That too. Yeah. But one of the things that I didn't realize is that birds are the fourth um fourth most popular pet in the United States, which makes sense if you think about it, But I never really thought about all mine. Mine just stops after dogs, which are number one. Yeah, I mean dogs, cats, what is it? Fish? And then birds. I would expect goats to be somewhere on there, but I think people just love seeing goats and not necessarily owning them. Yes, sure, but I think a lot of people who own birds come especially parrots, come to feel the same way after they've bought a parrot, as we'll see. Yeah, so should we dig into this thing I thought we already had. So there are a lot of different kinds of parrots. Uh, they are, I mean, they're close to four hundred species of the order. And I'd look this up in a couple of places. Uh, citize for mese. Mm hmm, what did you get? Uh, yeah, I thought you were gonna say Citi signs, but yeah, that's that's how I would have said it, okay. Uh, And we're talking like you know, if you think of a parrot, you probably think of like, oh, it's a macaw or an African gray. But if you've seen a parakeet or a lorikeet, or a cockatiel or cockatoo, those are all parrots as well. Yeah, so I love birds as well. There's there's a lot of different kinds of birds that are parrots, and um, some of them just don't even really look like it. You're like, no, that's an eagle, or I think that's a kind of vulture. Like they're very they're really varied um order um. But they all have in common a couple of things that will see, one of which is a short beak that's curved usually uh, which is very very powerful. And then they also have a certain kind of toe arrangement called the zygodactyl toe arrangements talk more about in a little bit, but other than that, they are really kind of very like I was saying, in size and shape and color um, and even down to some kinds of species. They can be varied among the male and the female so much so. I think there's one, Oh, I can't remember which one it was, um, but it was a kind of parrot, smallish parrot where the males and the females look so totally different color wise that they were thought to be different species for a very long time. That's right, that's the Solomon Island electus. Thank you, show off, but thank you. So you know, like you said, they vary in size. There are some that are so big, like uh, the Coca poa in New Zealand that can be like a seven pounder. Did you see any videos of those guys? They're great. They can't even fly there so big, No, they don't. They don't even they bound along their wings. They don't work for flying, but they use them for stability because they mostly climb trees. But they're yeah, they're ground dwelling. They look like little furry or feathery mammals basically sort of. I don't know why that hasn't been a Disney character yet. I don't either, because they also seemed to be very sweet. I saw some uh New Zealand, um, like I guess researchers who were tracking them, and I don't even think they put this one Coca poa under when they took a blood sample. It was just laying in their lap and I think it was just like just basically like yeah, just hanging out, you know, like go ahead, just take the blood and let me let me go again. So they're super super chill um. But yeah, they would make a perfect Disney character for sure. Yeah. So those are the big daddies. Um. There are ones from New Guinea that are just a few inches, way less than an ounce. I think the highest Innthe macaw is generally the biggest just in size. Uh. They can be three and a half feet long. Um, they can have four with wingspans and I think the kind of trademark characteristic when you think of parrots though, or the vibrant colors. Um, you know, some are like the gray African gray is mainly just gray that has a little bit of red. But when you think of parrots, you think of those really brightly colored blues and greens and reds and little rosy cheeks and stuff like that. Yeah, which, and I mean they're obviously the reason why parrots have very bright colors is to attract mates. Like that's basically the reason for anything to have a bright color, unless it's showing that it's poisonous. And as far as we've ever found, parrots are not poisonous. But one of the specialties, do you think, right, dead by dawn? One of the specialties of the pigments in parrots. It's apparently not found in other birds. The chuck is that those pigments have antibacterial properties, which I guess keep them from getting like wing rot or something like that. Yeah, there's um, there's so I think it's called citico boy, here we go. Citico Fulvin's are those pigments, and they're found only in parts There aren't even any other birds to have these. Yeah, But I mean other birds have colors, but they don't have that specific kind of anti bacterial agent color pigment, right, that's right. And you mentioned the toes. That is a um you know, along with I think like owls and woodpeckers, and I think there are some other birds that hive these zygodactyl feet. But that means they have the usual four toes, but most birds have three in one arrangement, like three up front, one in the back. In this case, they have two upfront, two in the back. So Juliet helped us put this together, and she basically points out that like this means they have two sets of opposable thumbs. So that's why they're really good climbers, and they can hold on to a branch like it's you know, until the sun comes up dead by down style exactly. And if you've ever seen a parrot work a nut or seed or something with the combination of the beak in those four toes, it's pretty pretty dexterrous. Yeah. That's also again how those coca posts can climb trees without any ability to fly. They I mean, they can maneuver, they can hang and believe there's an upside down hanging type of parrot, which I'm not sure why it hangs upside down, maybe just to show off that it has zygodactyl toes. But they can do a lot with those things. And yeah, in combination with their beak there, they're really working it. Apparently their beak as well. Um, that sharp, short curved beak that that all parrots have is extremely powerful. Um. They move independently of one another lower beak in the upper beak, so it can exert a lot of force. Um. And and that really helps out because a lot of their food are like really hard nuts and seeds and things like that, but they they're nothing in the face of a parrots beak. Yeah, it's if you've ever been chopped down on by a parrot, it's rough. Yeah, they'll take a chunk of skin out. Yeah, they were. When I worked in Arizona, that restaurant in Yuma, Julianna's Patio Cafe. It was an outdoor cafe and they had the owner, Julia, had parrots and I think they were like five of them, just kind of behind where you eat on these stands, not even caged. And they were mean, the snakes, not to her they were, but if you were not her and you went up and you were like, oh, let me give you a little ear scratch. One of those things could just fly its little head around and chop down on your finger and it feels like it's in a vice. Yeah, well you're lucky. They could have taken your finger clean off. Probably there's there's anecdotal stories that, um, that we are not able to verify. But this, it's definitely worth mentioning that a large parrot could snap a broomstick with its beak, which is, if you read it, it's really impressive. When you say it out loud, you feel very foolish a little bit. I mean, sure, I guess it depends on the broom but it's it's really old, rotted, termite rotted broomstick. Yeah, let's just say it's really really a lot of force. Um, and my finger can vouch for that. Was that some of the peppering you alluded to earlier, that's one one kind of pepper, one grain of pepper. Got I had a bird that'll come up later. I can't wait for that one. Um. So Chuckie, you're saying that, like, um, they wouldn't bite Julia Julianna Julianna Julia because she was part of their flock. As we'll see um. And it turns out that there are some parrots get along with other species of parrots and even other species of birds and other kinds don't so much so that when you read like a parrot owner's guide, they're basically like, if you're gonna get you know, other birds do not get this kind with this kind. And ironically, love birds are famously mean to other species of birds. But if you're in their flock, then you're you're one of them. And that's one thing that one reason why parrots make such great pets for so many people is because they imprint with humans really well, and are you're just a member of their family and they're a member of your family. That's just the way it is to the parrot. If you're an outsider interloper, yeah, they'll take your finger off like it's an old broomstick. So Yumi was never ingratiated herself, I I guess not, which just surprising because everybody likes you, you know, I know, like animals flocked to her like snow white. Basically, yeah, she's always she's got this lamb following around. Now. I don't know where that thing came from. It is cute, it is the lambing is coming soon, unfortunately for the boy. Uh well, let's take a little break there then and we'll come back and talk a little bit about Uh, parrots in the wild. Want to learn about astortic how to take the perfect, but all about fractal get Kiscon's hunt the Lizzie Border murders. That they kind of all runs on the plane every day. We should know. Word up, Jerry. Okay, So Chuck, we were talking. We're going to talk about parrots in the wild UM, which is where they used to be um more often than not, and still are. Like there's something like three hundred and about three hundred and sixty known species of parrots UM. But a lot of them are dying off really quick, as we'll talk about. But the thing about parrots were learning is that they're really resilient, Like they can adapt and find homes and make homes for themselves in new climates. So you'll find them typically in their preferred area around the tropics, around the equator, typically in the southern hemisphere, but you're also going to find them like living up in mountain ranges, high up on rocky outcrops. Um. You'll find them in Chicago's Hyde Park. There's a bunch of Connecticut. They're kind of all over the place. Even though no native species UM from the United States are are still around, there's still plenty of like wild feral parrots that live out in the US. Yeah. When I was in Australia, UM, we had a couple of down days and you know, my buddy Scotty, our friend Scotty, came over to join us, and um we Scotty and I went down to wine country south of south of Melbourne, which is just some of those beautiful land I've ever seen in my life. And we were at a wine winery overlooking this huge vineyard and then like the sort of woodland jungle, and I saw these huge white birds flying around down there, and we were the only people there. We were there in the off season, so everywhere we went, we were the only two people kind of tasting. And so we got, you know, to hang out with the the winemakers, which is cool, and they said, uh, there was a cockatoose and I was like, I was just a naive American. I didn't know they just flew around Australia like that. And I said, just so you know those like they sell those in stores for a lot of money in the United States, And I said, it's just crazy to me that they're just flying around. Yeah, apparently there was a time not terribly long ago where you could see beautiful green cockatoos um or parakeets i'm sorry, flying around the United States until we drove them to extinction about a hundred or so years ago. Yeah, the Carolina went in there, a North Carolina parakeet, the Carolina parakeet. Yep. It was just this gorgeous, green, beautiful parakeet that was native to the United States. Um and I saw some things. So, you know. Passenger pigeons were also famously um uh, driven to extinction. The last Carolina parakeet died in the same cage that the last passenger pigeon, Martha died in at the Cincinnati Zoo. So the Cincinnati Zoo had the honor of keeping captive the last passenger pigeon and the last Carolina parakeet and killing them. Right, They had this one zookeeper who was in charge of strangling the last one just to give it over with because they couldn't couldn't stand the tin in any longer. You know, They're like, just get it over with. Oh, I've got a joke that is, so I'm not going to tell because I would upset bird lovers, So tell me later. I'll tell you later. Uh So, these parents, they mainly stay up in the trees. Obviously, they do come down if they were going to drink something and sometimes if they need to find something to eat if they can't get it up there, And they generally do this kind of follow the humans patterns of kind of hanging out and doing the stuff during the day and sleeping at night unless you're a coca peo or a night parrot, and they are nocturnal, which is um. I think they're the only two of the species. What's neat about those coca posts? Who is um? They be from being nocturnal, the eyes have migrated from the sides of their heads towards the front of their face, and they've developed this kind of puffy feathers around their eyes. So they're also known as the owl parrot because they've started to kind of resemble the owl, and the owl is typically nocturnal as well. Are you going to get a Coca peo. I think I might. Actually, there's only a hundred and fifty left me. I could probably be arrested, but at the very least, I'm going to give it a shot. You know. So they are omnivores and they will generally eat seeds and nuts and plants and fruits and things and insects. But if they need to eat, you know, a parrot's gonna do what a parent's gonna do. This is crazy, and this is you know, this can cause problems. I think the African gray can feast on corn, which has caused problems with corn crops in New Zealand. This is the crazy part. Uh. In the kind of mid eighteen hundreds in New Zealand, keys k e a s We're discovered to be and this is sort of horrifying. Eating sheep and attacking sheep in the middle of the night. Yes, well, I guess it was in the middle of the night because they're not they're not nocturnal. But in my mind, it's a horror movie and it happens in the middle of the night to me the most, the like the middle of the day makes things even more horrific. Things aren't bad. Things aren't supposed to happen in the middle of You're supposed to happen at night in the woods, you know, good point, not not in the middle of a field in the day. So seeing some parrots attack and eat a sheep in the middle of the day, that's bad news. But those things, actually they look a lot like eagles more so than parrots to me. So you give them a pass. Yeah, that's fine. What I'd like to see. I'd like to see them all try to carry off a sheep together with teamwork, you know, But I don't think that's how it goes. Well, there's your cartoon that's like a ziggy cartoon. I think they I think they put parrot repellent on because you know, they back in the day, they would just kill them all and let God sort of ount. That's what happened to the Carolina parrot key. Yeah exactly. But they, you know, eventually they were like, we can't just kill these keys, Like we're a more evolved you know, humankind at this point, and we got to stop this stuff. We gotta protect them. So they've looked for ways to to keep from having to do that, and one of them is that parrot repellent on the cheep's bellies, which it's probably like that stuff you tried to use on your fingernails to keep from biting them. I used to coat my fingers in that. But you just slather in a sheep's belly and call it a day. Yeah, it's very better. One thing I did want to add though, when you were talking about their range and they can end up in weird places. I remember when we would do commercial shoots in Pasadena, California, and we would have the Unlucky Parrot Location, which is basically anywhere in Pasadena. On any given day, you could be near a bunch of parrots making a ton of noise and you can't shoot, You know how it is with sounds like you can't you can't pay the guy to turn off his blower or his lawnmower. Yeah, but you can't. Yeah, I want two and free reign at the craft services table. But yeah, those uh, those Pasadena parrots, they have disrupted many film shoot so um. Yeah. So you're like, well, wait a minute, there's not native parrots in the United States. How are there a bunch of parrots in the trees in Pasadena? Well, people let their parents go, or people die in their parrots escape or what have you. Um And like I was saying before, it's like they're really resilient. And once they start forming breeding pairs, even though they have like a really low reproduction rate. Um as we'll see in a second, they they can they can survive. They can make new niches for themselves, which is pretty cool. But they're all there's there's a lot in Florida, Texas, and California. I think every kind of species that has a population is supported in all three of those states. Right in the Connecticut one is just a that's a very weird thing. Yeah. In Chicago's Hyde Park too, it's like the roof caves in on people's houses in the winter in Chicago. There's so much snow and it's so cold, Like, how are parrots surviving? But apparently they do. It's crazy, so they live And this is this is pretty great. This is where stuff you should know things intersect or love of uh, collections and groupings of animals, sounds of assemblage. Yeah, pandemonium of parrots is what it's called. For good reason, like I said, because they are super noisy and can be aggravating in large numbers. When they're out in the wild and they live together, they help each other out, they feed with each other, they look out for each other, they keep track of each other, and they communicate with each other. All those squawks and screams that you hear when a bunch of when a pandemonium is gathered, is them talking to each other. And they might be saying, you know, film crew, or they might be saying snake or monkey like look out. Yeah. I also have the impression, from spending hours and hours of watching beautiful parrots of all types seeing and be happy um that that they're just basically sharing how they're feeling at any given points sometimes too, and that a lot of times it's real positive. You know, they're talking about how great things are beautiful the day is. I could be anthropomorphizing, but it really really seems that way. They just seem like kind of a happy, happy type of animal. I'm like, I want to buy into that too. I'm with you. Just go ahead. It's like, prove me wrong. I'll give you ten years, and in those in the ten year span, I'll enjoy these parrots for what I think they're doing. I agree. I mean, we all laughed at you early on, and now she's got that lamb following her around, right like miracles can happen. We have to get some of that um that nail biting stuff to slather on the lamb's belly in case it runs into some keys. Uh. So they mate and they have little babies. They are generally monogamous, and males and females work together to raise the kid and to care for the little baby. From the moment that it's an egg, they will sit on it for eighteen to thirty days and even take turns. I think the mom usually does most of the sitting while the male goes out and get some food. But the male can also be like, why don't you why don't you stretch your leg, you stretch your toes? Yeah exactly, so um yeah, But for the most part, the male gets the food or something like that. But the um lovebirds also are like famously monogamous, and they so much so that when they're separated, when a breeding pair of separated, when they're brought back together, um all, first of all, they'll start to like lose energy and get real depressed and sad. And then when they're brought back together. They reform their bond by feeding one another with their beak. It's very cute, isn't That's sweet? Um? Yeah, I kind of have have a thing for love birds now. They're just super cute and pretty and so you know what, you know, what birds are not monogamous, which one's casual sex birds raw lowbirds. Yeah, but good for them, you know. So sure they're just out there doing their thing, not hurting anybody, as long as they're upfront about what they're in there for. You know, Rob Blow, is this from his sex scandal from like years ago. No, I just think of Rob Blow is like being difficult to pin down and you know, love and life, having having a good time, just doing his thing. That's what I think. He's really worked to change that image over the past three decades. He really has not with me, but I recognize what he's been trying to do. Okay, famous lothario Rob Blow. Oh well, I also dated myself because I would say a good third of our listeners are like, who's this Rob Low guy. It's like, oh yeah, that's right, he was, so they might know them. I was gonna say, it's like Mad magazine making fun of Spiro Agnew when we were little, and we're like, who who is the Spiro Agnew? Right? To us, Rob Low is the sax player from st Almost Fire who made a sex tape to them. He's the happy dad and uh Parks and wreck guy. I also think of him as literally dude from um west Wing. I don't remember what his character's name was, No need to email, I can look it up myself. I never saw that show. Oh you didn't. It's good. I think you'd like it, all right. Even if you don't like Aaron Sorkin, you'd like west Wing. He's a little wordy for me, Yeah, sure, yeah, a little, a little over the top every single second of every single show. But west Wing was his. It was. It just worked perfectly for him. Yeah. I don't want to knock Aaron Sorkin. I'll just say he has a fondness for typing. But so there was this one, this one, this one Rob Low sketch on Sara Live. I know we've talked about before, but remember when Aaron Sorkin was busted with mushrooms in the airport. No, so this that news came out on a week when Roblow was hosting Sara Live. So they did one of those famous like walk and talk shots from West Wing and in the background, suddenly suddenly it converts from like the West Wing that they're walking through and now they're being chased in a black and white movie by a giant like iguana. And so they they're still walking talking about, you know, the administration of the president, but they're also kind of jogging running away looking behind them at this giant iguana has really really great stuff. So how many breaks have we taken? Charles? Just one? Do you want to take another one? Or keep going a little more? I think maybe let's wait one minute. Let's talk about their uh intelligent and altruism, and I think that's those are two lovely topics. Well, before we do that, I've got one more thing about mating. So um they actually when they reproduce, they'll they'll lay between like two and eight eggs at a time, and their incubation period can be really fast, like eighteen days thirty days. But they also usually only have a couple of um chicks survive, and they spend a lot of time and energy raising their young almost to a humanlike degree, not not for eighteen years, but for up to like four years. In some cases, the offspring, the chicks will you know, grow up with the parents. Um, so they actually have a very low reproductive rate. So it's a big problem when humans come along and you know, kill off pair of populations because they're slow to recover. They're slow to reproduce. So just put that that little pin in your hat and smoke it. I just can't get that one right these days. So parents are super smart, like we talked about. And there are a couple of really great examples of how and how they display this. And one is is they can use tools like they have seen parrots use sticks to like scratch their heads and stuff like that. Uh, this one is amazing. They found that cockatoos have been observed using sticks to drum on logs as part of a courtship sort of mating ritual. Because nothing women love more than a drum solo. You know, I know it really just every woman alive thinks of drum solo is the greatest musical thing you can do. That's usually when I go to the bathroom to Yeah, I mean it's a hats off, but yeah, it's just kind of whatever that don't happen much anymore. No, you don't see those, but um, the one that knocked my socks off, chuck was Um, there's at least oh the greater vassa parrot. They will use little pebbles or whatever to grind up seashells, and the male does this, and the male will eat the seashell and re urgitated into like this vomity calcium rich paste as an offering to pair of female he's trying to make with, which sounds gross and weird until you realize that other birds eat calcium rich shells or chew on them or whatever to to strengthen the shells of their own eggs. But parrots are the only known birds to actually use tools to grind the shells up to make them easier to digest. And the males offering it to the woman is a like a basically like, hey, look at how well I'm taking care of you and our kid. I'm regurgitating seashells for you that I'm grinding up. That's astounding tool used. Like you just do not see that elsewhere except in like maybe primates here there. Well, I mean, if you want to talk about cool, their altruism is something that you don't see much in the animal kingdom at all. Um very few non human species show this trait, and no birds before just a couple of years ago. We're even on this list. They even tested crows out because they're super smart, I think in and they gave them an altruism tests and they're like, nope, you guys failed the test. But they did this. And this was from just January of last year in current biology, ironically, like just a couple of months before the coronavirus hid. They're like, they don't have anything to talk about this month exactly, they're doing some important work. And they did this um exercise where they got these birds together, these parrots, and that they put them in pairs and they basically put a wall between them with a hole, and they were separated, and one of them had a token and one of them had that you would trade for food, but one of them didn't. One of them had the food and one of them had the token. So these birds literally figured out how to work together to exchange like here, you take this token because you've got the food, feed yourself. But remember me, if the roles are ever reversed, right, which is a totally different thing. It's a reciprocity. So these these mccaus showed that there was it. The African gray is the one that passed. Yeah, and they're typically known as like possibly the smartest birds of all time. But um, the like in addition to like, here you go, have this, have the like, take this token and get yourself some food even though I'm not getting anything back. When the when the roles were reversed, the birds would do the same thing, so they would get their turn basically later on. And so yeah, you have altruism and reciprocity tool use. Um. They're also very famous for mimicry too, which a lot of birds can mimic sounds. I saw a video of a minor bird um in the wild, I guess being filmed with a camera as well as a video camera, because it made an exact sound of a digital camera taking a picture. It was astounding. It sounded like they dubbed the sound of a camera over this bird. I wonder about that on some of these videos. This is I mean, I hope, but it was legit. I mean it was. It looked like a legit wildlife video or a clip from one. But a lot of birds can do that. But the thing is other birds can't do. What parrots can do is like their mimicry is at a whole different level compared to other birds. And they're basically the only bird we know of that can mimic a human voice. I think that's a great place for a cliffhanger, right, sure, all right, we'll come back and we'll talk more about mimicry right after this. I want to learn about a terrestortic college act how to take the bird. But but all about fractals getting Kiscon's hunt, the Lizzie Border murders, that they kind of all runs on the plane every day. We should know. Word up, Jerry. All right, so we're back and we're talking about birds vocalizing and mimicking things. Uh, they have voices that vary by region, which is really neat. They have different dialects basically, and if a parent moves to a new area where they have a different kind of dialect, they will adjust, you know what Julia refers to as their accents to fit in, which is really really amazing. Yeah, it is amazing and apparent. I was reading up on a study about that chuck and they found that a bird that lives, like, these dialects will be kind of regional, but some regions butt up against one another. So if you're in a nest that um is adjacent to two regions, they'll kind of use it. They'll go back and forth. And they found like the differences in the basic structure of the calls are different enough that that they're dialectical. But then within these nests there's different variations, slighter variations within the dialects, so like they're they're communicating into some really astounding degrees. And like I was saying that, you know, parrots in particular the only one smart enough to mimic humans. And one of the reason is that they do this is they're able to manipulate their tongue, which is one of the things that we do to produce speech. So they're not just they're not just mimicking a sound like, they're actually forming words very similarly to how humans do. UM. They are also capable of hitting like pitches, lower pitches that are more in step with how human the human voice sounds, so it sounds more like human that they're mimicking. But then also they seem to have an additional layer um in their brain and the region of their brain that they used to to mimic um that other animals don't have that other birds don't have, which implies that they're just smart enough to do this too. Yeah. So I had a cockateal. Oh some pepper. Everybody had a cockateal when I was a kid. I was like, I mean, I feel like we had this bird for a few years, but I was definitely in the you know, ten eleven twelve year old range, and our little gray cockateal was named Dolly, and I, you know, knew that you could teach cockatiels to say things. So I was, my brother and I were all over this. You know, no one else in the family really cared. But we got a record to teach us how to do this. And it involves tons and tons of repetition. You can't just go up to a bird and teach it to say something a couple of times and they'll do It. Requires a lot of repetition, and so we taught. By the end, Dolly could say hello and hello Dolly, and Dolly could do the wolf whistle like uh oh yeah, like when someone walked in the room, uh I. Dolly learned to do the charge in it. And and then the one I was most proud of is I taught Dolly to do the co co co co like a jungle bird. And it was my favorite thing that Dolly could do. So Dolly would sit on my shoulder and like kind of nibble up my ear lobes and watch TV and stuff and peck at my hair and that was sort of the ex tent of it. It was a tremendous mess. Uh And you know, we're I guess we can go and talk about that. If you have a a bird, it's it's feathers and poop and seeds everywhere. Yeah. Well, because when you have a parrot, you're supposed to give it a lot of time outside of the cage, which we'll we'll talk a little more extensively about that. But yes, they're a big mass for sure. But Dolly learning to talk was one of the coolest things I did as a kid. And people love to hear parrots say things. They if you go and type parrot into YouTube. The third thing that comes down is the next offering is parrots cursing, because it's just funny. People want to see a parrot tell someone to you know, buzz off. Yeah, buzz off if you're lucky, if they haven't lived in a frat house for a few years. Um, more often than not, they just straight up curse. And every once in a while you'll see a story about some parrots that had to be moved from like a wild I've preserved because they were cursing at like the people who came by to see them or whatever, and teaching little kids bad manners. I mean, they're all kinds of videos. It's it's very fun. Kids. Ask your parents if you can watch parrot talking videos, because some of them curse. Uh if there are some funny ones too with parrots and alexis um talking to Alexa, and I think one of them that was a parrot that the lady um, the owner went back and ordered or was checking on things that were ordered, because this parrot would order stuff. Yeah, and the parrot kept trying to order a fart shopping I don't know. I mean she just said what's on the shopping list? And Alexa said, bird seed fart, Right, that's pretty great. I want to know what Alexa would would imagine that to be well, I mean, if I think if you say to burp or fart they'll do it, right. I don't know. I haven't tried that, but I'm going to write after this, do you really haven't. I haven't very impressed. I'm forty four years old and I've never tried that. Al Right, well I'm almost fifty, so you'll come back around and think it's funny again. You know what's funny, Chuck? You have mastered one of the I think sixty things that the Kama Sutra says every person should master before they die, and that is to train a parrot to talk is one of them. Yeah, I had no idea I ran across that. So, um, we can't talk about parents, and especially talk about parent intelligence and not talk about Alex the parrot, which who we have talked about before he showed up in our How Zero Works episode, because he's, as far as anyone knows, the I think, if not the only bird, possibly the only other non human animal who's demonstrated a grasp of the concept of zero. Um, that's a really weird concept that that most non humans can't grasp, or possibly any other non humans can't grasp, Alex could, which kind of goes to show you what a smart part he was. Yeah, I think they figured in the end, Alex was about as smart as a five year old person, and uh not from like the depth of vocabulary. Alex knew about a hundred words, which is sounds like a lot compared to Dolly. But I think the Guinness record is a parakeet named Puck who learned about sevent dred words and change, so a hundred is good. But Alex could understand concepts like bigger and smaller and same and different, and would make up his own word combinations, like I think the first time Alex a cake, Alex called it yummy bread, which is really pretty astounding and can maybe kind of scary. He supposedly is the first animal to ask an existential question, which he saw himself in the mirror, and he asked what color? And so his his handler and researcher I Irene Pepperberg, who wrote many, many papers from the seventies to the early two thousands. UM about Alex, whose name it turns out as an acronym for Avian language experiment. It's a little saddened by that, you know, like the robot whose name is like an acronym for someone science E just kind of dehumanizing. UM. But Alex. Um, he he asked like what color, and they took it to mean like he was asking about himself, like he he recognized himself in the mirror. And apparently parrots frequently talk about themselves in third person, like that that parrot or that para. Keep Puck hell right right, who held the record for the most words, Um, he talked about himself in third person. And apparently he once said it's Christmas and that he was happy about it being Christmas, and Puck loved everybody. That's great, Yeah, but I mean it's like, that's pretty intelligent. If this parrot understands what that it's Christmas day and everybody's happy that he loves everybody, it's a I'm I'm just impressed with parrots. In addition to being cute, they also have brains, brains and looks. That's right, So I think we gotta at least talk about the notion of pirates having parrots. Uh. It is not necessarily just a movie trope or a book trope from literature. It makes sense in a way. Um, they may have wanted when they're out at sea some companionship having a dog or a cat or a goat, or a lamb following you around on a ship isn't a great idea? Like a bird kind of makes sense. And they could eat the hard attack and the crackers and and sip on the rum, and it makes sense to have birds. They were they were they were going places where they might have been. Like I don't know if there's any hard evidence, but nothing about it seems like there's no way that could have been true. No, what what I saw is that, um, that that's possibly the case, but that the Age of Discovery was at the second time that Europe fell in love with parrots as pets, and that the initial trend started when Alexander the Great invaded India and took some parrots back to Greece with them, and they ended up spreading to Europe. And actually the Alexandrine parrot is named after Alexander the Great because it's apparently one of the ones that he brought back with them. And then parents just I guess fell out of fashion. And uh, then when people started going to like Brazil, and and coming back from Brazil, they came back with parrots on their shoulders and the trend started again. I love it. I did mention that they were. They're not the easiest pet to take care of, the air messy. They are demanding, they're pretty needy. They need lots of attention. If they don't get it, they can be kind of disruptive and destructive. Uh, not trying to talk anyone out of getting a bird, but it's a lot too lots to bite off if you've never had one. Yeah, no, it's I mean, like even even more of a commitment. I would think then, say, like getting a dog, not just because of the enormous amounts of attention that they need from you, but they're really long lived too, Like that's the deal. Much longer lived than than a dog or a cat. Like like in in the wild, parrots typically lived maybe thirty years. I think the the Cuca po cuca po um lives possibly ninety years in the wild. But in captivity parrots really live for a long time. Um forty fifty sixty years. There was a major Mitchell's cockatoon named Cookie. That's the oldest living documented parrot in captivity. Uh. He lived to eighty three. I think, yeah, like you, you often see parrots and people's wills because you have to pass them along to somebody and yeah, for the life of me Ida. I don't know what happened to Dolly. We had Dolly for a few years. It's just kind of one of those things when you're a kids sometimes you have pets that just go away and your parents are like, they're on the farm now, They're like Dolly, who stop asking questions. Let's never speak of Dolly again. Dolly may have gotten out, I don't know, but that happens. I mean, they they escape sometimes. Um. I mean, Umey's grandma's parent outlived her and they went to live with one of her friends who keeps birds. So yeah, I mean, like they're really long lived pets. But part of the reason why they think that there are or why they know there are feral parrot populations around the United States is because people people just let them go. They're like, I can't I had no idea what I was getting into. Just fly free parrot. I'm sorry that we ever met. It's like flushing that baby python down the toilet a little bit, a lot bit actually, um. But the thing is is it's kind of so it's it's good on the one hand that that just doesn't automatically like kill the parrot that they can Actually they might find like a local population that they can join. They might find another one and star to local population as a breeding pair. Um, it's not like a death sentence to parrots, like you should never you know, just release your pet into the wild. That's that's just bad juju. But um, if you do with the parrot, it's not It's not a death sentence, is what I'm saying. One of the bigger problems of that is that you have still placed to demand on the bird market. Yes, and the bird market is not like there's not some nice family in you know, the central rural part of your state that breeds parrots, and that's where all the parrots come from. The parrots that you get typically have been stolen from a nest in Brazil and brought to the United States. I saw something like eight hundred thousand parrot chicks a year are removed from nests to feed the demand of the exotic bird market. Um, and a lot of them don't survive. They die on the way. And as I was saying before, the reproductive rate of parrots is low enough that once you get enough chicks removed from their native habitats, they're not getting replaced fast enough, and then that leads to a collapse of the population and it can mean extinction if that happens across the large enough range. Yeah, and there are plenty of countries, including the United States, that have done past legislation to try and put a dent in like this importing and poaching and stuff. But at the beginning of this year, there was a study in Global Change Biology that said that a third apparent species are threatened with extinction. I think a hundred and seventy one of the species are near threatened or critically endangered. The cacapa that you talked about, you mentioned that they're along like a hundred and fifty of those left. Yeah, you really don't want the cacapa to go extinct. Luckily, they're new in New Zealand and New Zealand loves nature, so they're in a good spot. Yeah, that's true. That's a good point. Are they trying to breed them? At least? I think they're protecting the heck out of them and they're just leaving them to breed amongst themselves. They live on three isolated remote islands that don't have any introduced predators, so they they're they're they're in a precarious place, but they're in about as good a place as they could be for the precarious state there in. Yeah, and it's you know, it's not just people poaching. It's uh, humans encroaching with developments and you know, less and less natural habitat. It's obviously, uh, you know, the repercussions of climate change. When things like the Australian wildfires break out, it's a reduction of habitat and the poaching that's kind of put a real dent in the para population. Yeah, so they're saying, well, you know, there's there's so they've actually identified some hot spots of parent biodiversity around the world that said like, Okay, if these places, if the governments in these places like move to protect parrots, parrots are going to be okay. Um, So like the northeastern Andes, the Atlantic forest that stretches from Brazil Inland and Argentina and Paraguay. Um, if these places can can protect the parrots, their parents should be fine. So hopefully they will. And then the demand side, uh, if Europe in Japan will kind of get over their love of parrots or figure out a different way to get parrots a more sustainable way than that would have a big effect to Are they two of the biggest defenders from what I saw, Yeah, because that act the US pass cut poaching and half um from what I could tell, So it was like a really big had a big impact. But Europe in japan'ss continued on without that kind of legislation. I think it's great, well, not great for them, but great for us. Up with parrots, everybody, And if you want to get a little pop of joy out of your day, watch this one minute video called bird Sings in Synchrony with piano. Incredible cute, three exclamation points not incredibly cute. It is one of the sweetest things I've seen in a while. And you'll be like, yep, Josh's right. Birds can just be happy little souls. Yeah, or bird's cursing that's one too. Uh. Are you got anything else that? Nothing else? Well, parrots everybody, Like I said, go wat some parrot videos and uh. In the meantime, it's time for listening mail. I'm gonna call this plugging another podcast. We don't often do this, and it's not from professional envy or anything. It was just, uh, we would be doing it all the time if we did it too much. Yeah, nice one. Hey guys, my name is vv goer g A you are. I've been listening to your show for the past six years. My physiotherapist working in the suburbs of Delhi, and part of my job is provide domicillary care where I have uh to go see my patients at their houses and therefore need to drive every day. You're one of my favorite podcasts to listen to, and I'll listen to you guys almost every day when I am driving through the chaotic traffic. It gave me some something worthwhile to listen to. It's interesting and I like your humorous, humorous conversational style. I wish after covid gets over, you would do a live show in New Delhi someday. Man, how about that? Yeah, maybe I think we could draw a crowd. I have a crowd of one at least. Yeah, Vivik will be there. I just want to know that someone is listening to you guys every day from the other side of the globe, and you inspired me to launch my own podcast. Uh if you would flee shout out to Vivik Gower, physiotherapist, podcast that is v I V E k g A. You are a physiotherapist podcast. Although it's in English which is Hindi and English, you guys will not understand the majority of it L O L, but keep doing what you're doing. Best Switches That is Vivik. Thanks a lot, Vavik, and good luck on your podcast. That was very nice of you to plug a chuck. Yeah, check it out in English and we'll see you in New Delhi someday. Don't know win, but someday sure. And if you want to get in touch with this, like Vick did, you can send us an email to Stuff Podcast at iHeart radio dot com. Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeart Radio. 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