It still srprizes me what Salty picks up vocally and what he does not. We just wathced about an hur of Youtube videos of various parrots talking ( or mumbling). 100% of the time, what draws him from somewhere else to my my shoulder to watch a video is always a Indian Ringneck parrot. We could be watching or listeneing to macaws, Amazons, Eclectus or other parrots, and he will always run over to see the screen when its a IRN on screen. Salty always asks the parrot "Are you a bird? A pretty bird?" and most times he introduces himself with a nice clear "Salty!" and only in the beginning of the video. Such a polite parrot! Whats odd to me is that IRNs always talk in the same pitch and timber of voice, regardless of who they learned from. Doesn't seem to matter the gender or vocal quality of the trainer, the IRN's voice sounds the same from bird to bird. I hear the same with most cockatoos, quakers, Eclectus - they all seem to have the same voices. Whereas African Greys and Amazons will truly match the voice of the person they are imitating, sounding a lot like the trainers voice. Salty does the same, so when he talks , he sounds like either me, my wife or my son Erik - you can clearly tell who he is copying, or what parrot he is copying too. Funny, he also does this with coughing - you can tell whose cough he is doing. When he does my voice, wither in speaking or singing , its deeper and almost gravel like, whereas when he is copying Geri, my wife, its a much higher, pleasanter voice and sounds a lot like her voice.
It's also time to shop for some new tricks or props to use in our training sessions, he whips through all the ones we currently use and you can tell he is a bit bored. One trick that still holds a lot of interest for him though is playing Jenga. But his new variation is to put the Jenga sticks BACK onto the Jenga pile and its interesting and funny to see what his interpretation of the pile is; they rarely wind up in the right places.
Also a new batch of chop' was made last weekend, I use the normal recipe, except I went to a new supermarket, better stocked and with more variety, so I included some new types of peppers and oddball veggies. I also drained the processed veggies a lot before adding them to the bowl, to cut down on the amount of water. That way the chop is not as runny when I defrost and zap the nights meal of chop. The Texas Freeze Dried mix works well in absorbing most of the water from the chop, and Salty takes to it greedily.
Recall training is not going so well, Salty is more than content to sit and just watch me try to entice him from a perch to my hand, but I keep trying. His flying abilities though keep improving, and he lands where he intends to, be it a shoulder, a railing, the lip of the kitchen sink or where ever, including adjacent to our dog Tinker, thereby giving Salty a perfect opportunity to give her a nip on the ass or ear. If Tinker notices Salty's approach, she will bolt just as he lands, but most times she is flaked out and sleeping. I've also seen Salty use a sneak attack, stealthily stalking her with his head down almost cat-like.
With the beautiful warmer weather lately, I've dusted off the larger travel cage so Salty can enjoy some outdoor time, soaking up the rays. He's become a bit wary of putting harness on, so we practice it more at nigh during training.
Happy Hatch Day Salty!! 
from your buddies Amy,Beebs,and Jim!
