What do your birds say/mimic?

Vampiric_Conure

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May 16, 2022
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Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada
Parrots
Charlie (M) - 24 yrs - Peach Front Conure
Redshift (M)-23yrs - normal Cockatiel
Vortex (F) - Hatched March 15 2024
Wasn't sure where to post this, so here it gets splooted. If your guys' birds talk, what do they say? If they mimic, what do they mimic? ANything in particular they say or or do that you find hilarious?

Charlie, my peach front Conure, says 'Thank you' when I feed him, says 'I love you' and yells 'ARCHIE! (Must have been his previous owner's husband...). He also says 'night night' when I turn off the lights at bed time.

Redshift, my cockatiel, says or whistles 'night night' at bedtime. He'd also tell the other birds (when I had them) to 'shut up' if they got too loud. The funny thing there is that the others would listen! It's my fault. Winter, my dog, can really bark a lot sometimes, and I tell her to, well, shut up if she keeps going. Redshift picked that up and me saying 'WINTERRRRRRR!', LOL!
 
Tofu doesn't mimic anything but my bird sky mimics kissing sounds when I kiss her she does a kiss sound and she mimics eating sounds.
 
Well Salty is an Amazon, and not one that is noted for talking especially (like Dbl yellow heads or yellow napes), but he talks and sings plenty. He says:

  • Hi
  • Hi Daddy
  • Don't do that
  • Tinker (our dog)
  • C'mere puppy
  • Are you a bird? A pretty bird? (and yeah you can hear the question mark)
  • Pretty bird
  • A Buuuuuurd
  • Peek A boo
  • Says his name in different ways like 3 or 4, including Saltaaaaaay
  • Good boy
  • Many different laughs including one like Jabba the Huts pet Salacious B. Crumb
  • Yum Yum Yum
  • He practices new stuff in the morning just after breakfast, very quietly, in his cage.
  • He also has lengthy discussions with himself, usually in the afternoon, in a deep grumbly voice (mine I think) but the words are not recognizable - very cockatoo like.
Salty only mimics a few things, most of them various squeeks from doors and windows and NO microwave oven beeps or phone sounds (thank God!). He has a whole range of sounds, including one that starts out quietly and gradually ramps up into a full blown, loud as heck screaming session, if we don't redirect him. That one is unpleasant to say the least.

He also sings:
  • Little Brown Jug
  • The famous passage from Mozart's "The Magic Flute"
  • Random sung passages from his own head
  • He will also sing along with the TV or when I am playing various instruments, also his own version though
  • He will also sing along with you sometimes

Salty learned much of his speaking stuff from watching and listening to parrot videos on YT. He especially likes and copies Indian Ringnecks of all things; I would have thought other Amazons, but no. We have watched this one Amazon vid with a dbl YH, Marley, many times but he has not uttered a single thing from those vids.

Many years ago I had a Yellow Nape, Winston, and Holy Cow, that parrot could talk and pick up stuff like insanely well and quick.
 
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Val the budgie is probably the best little mimic I've ever had. He is an excellent singer in his own right, but he also mimics Fang when he sings either the theme tune from "The Great Escape" or "The Banana Splits". And it took him probably a week to start mimicking Jem the cockatiel *perfectly*. As in the following videos, first Jem, with the rolling repetitive type of call he has ...


... and then Val, who starts to make exactly the same call about 15 seconds in ...


He is SO good at mimicking both Jem and Fang now that I seriously don't know who is singing what unless I'm looking straight at 'em, but a lot of the time it's Val!
 
Val the budgie is probably the best little mimic I've ever had. He is an excellent singer in his own right, but he also mimics Fang when he sings either the theme tune from "The Great Escape" or "The Banana Splits". And it took him probably a week to start mimicking Jem the cockatiel *perfectly*. As in the following videos, first Jem, with the rolling repetitive type of call he has ...


... and then Val, who starts to make exactly the same call about 15 seconds in ...


He is SO good at mimicking both Jem and Fang now that I seriously don't know who is singing what unless I'm looking straight at 'em, but a lot of the time it's Val!
How cool!!:love:

This reminded me about one thing I've never posted here but been curious... Angela sometimes chirps exactly like my Bourkes but they are just single "chirp's" for calling, so I'm not sure if these two species have similar calling voice or she learnt it from BourkesšŸ¤”
 
How cool!!:love:

This reminded me about one thing I've never posted here but been curious... Angela sometimes chirps exactly like my Bourkes but they are just single "chirp's" for calling, so I'm not sure if these two species have similar calling voice or she learnt it from BourkesšŸ¤”
Angela might very well have picked up some chirps from your Bourkies, Rozz, she's been around them for quite a while now. Budgies are some of the most amazing mimics in the world, I don't see any reason why Angela wouldn't have picked up a flock or a contact call along the way too :)
 
Angela might very well have picked up some chirps from your Bourkies, Rozz, she's been around them for quite a while now. Budgies are some of the most amazing mimics in the world, I don't see any reason why Angela wouldn't have picked up a flock or a contact call along the way too :)
I've just googled to look for how the "contact call" sounds in budgie language. In general it is similar but you still can hear the characteristic budgie voice in these "eerps" (fanfact: immediately after turning on the video my Bourkes started calling too šŸ˜… ). This budgie voice sometimes is not heard in Angela's calling, so I started being even more sure she could pick up this.
 
Among the words in QP Ralph's vocabulary are: wait-wait-wait-wait, good parrot, pretty bird, funny Quaker, silly little parrot, water, popcorn and pellets. He quacks like a duck and clucks like a chicken, and imitates the creak of a kitchen cupboard door. :giggle:
Scooter the CAG can say a lot of things that she learned in her former home, like you have poop in your water and want some spaghetti? but now that she's been here for a few years, she doesn't say them too often. She does say (in my voice) hey there birds and hey there parrots, which is what I say when I come in from outside. Most recently, she picked up What, what? which is what I say to Ralph when he squawks for my attention. I don't have to say it anymore since Scooter took over the job. Mostly, Scooter likes to imitate anything that goes beep or boop, and she does precise imitations of the beeps of the microwave oven, toaster oven, coffee maker, cordless phone and the remote control for the air conditioner. :)
 
My new guy (still need a name!) says ā€œWhatcha doin?ā€ ā€œgood boyā€ and several other things I havenā€™t translated yet. He also makes lots of different noises including onethat reminds me of an answering machine lolā€¦..but heā€™s too young to have heard that sound!

Still need a same, I am up for suggestions!
 
Nico the Ekkie:
Nico
Hi Nico
AHHHHHHH
What's that?
Boy
He coughs like a human (previous owner had emphysema)
Step up
Yeah
What are you doing?

Kiwi the Conure:
Mimics kisses
Kiwi (very softly)
 
How cool!!:love:

This reminded me about one thing I've never posted here but been curious... Angela sometimes chirps exactly like my Bourkes but they are just single "chirp's" for calling, so I'm not sure if these two species have similar calling voice or she learnt it from BourkesšŸ¤”
Update:
Now I am pretty sure - today I heard how Angela was mimicking Bourke's chirping. And it wasn't the call sound but how they sing during day
 
Yoda (GCC) says "Hi Yoda!" very clearly and on command. The other things he says aren't clear to anyone but me. His pooping command is "Fire in the hole!" and he says that whenever he flies to his perch and poops, because he knows he'll get treats and/or picked up for doing so. To anyone but my it just sounds like he is saying "Chirpy-chirpy Chirp!". He also says I love you but to anyone but me it sounds like "Pew pew pew!". Finally, he imitates my laugh which is HYSTERICALLY funny because he sounds like Burt from Sesame Street because it's lacking any tonal changes, so it's a robotic little Heh heh heh heh heh heh heh sound that makes me laugh so hard.

Trigger (African Grey) says and mimics SO MUCH! He learns something new every day and he just blows our minds. Here's all that I can think of just now:
  1. Hi!!!
  2. I'm home!
  3. Hi Trigger!
  4. Hi Yoda! (he can say this in my voice and also in Yoda's chirpy voice, and his favorite game is to say it in my voice, then Yoda's voice, and back and forth, over and over... lol)
  5. Look at me! Look at me!!
  6. Peekaboo!
  7. I see you!!!
  8. Pew pew!
  9. Corn!
  10. Oooh peapod!
  11. Gulp gulp? (which means he's thirsty)
  12. Treat? Treat?
  13. Lunchy's ready!
  14. Trigger! (angry sounding)
  15. No Biting!
  16. Trigger... stop... Trigger.... Let go! Let go Trigger! (if you guessed this is because he sometimes bites and will NOT let go... sigh)
  17. I love you!
  18. I love you Trigger!
  19. Awwwwwww! (like Aww so cute!)
  20. Trigger, you're so cute!!
  21. You're so funny Trigger!
  22. Oh my god! Oh my god! (my voice, pretending to be panicking scared, which I've done making fun of him for getting randomly panicked by a loud noise or Yoda chirping. Especially funny when he is flying around in circles calling out Oh my God! Oh my God!!!)
  23. Yoda! Yoda come! Come here Yoda!
  24. Yoda, fire in the hole!
  25. Step up! Step Up Trigger!
  26. Good boy!!!
  27. Good boy Trigger!!
  28. Achoo! (perfect imitation of my sneeze)
  29. Gesundheit!
  30. Thank you
  31. You're welcome!
  32. Birdies birdies birdies!! (which I saw when it's meal time)
  33. (Microwave beeping)
  34. Yay Birds. (in a sarcastic tone, I often say this when they do something frustrating, in loving but exasperated way. ;) )
  35. Good morning!
  36. What are you doing?
  37. (random nonsense that perfectly mimic our conversations, he LOVES doing this while we are talking to each other, especially if we pause and pretend he's part of the conversation).
  38. My laughter
  39. My coughing
  40. My various whistled tunes (Looney tunes especially)

I sing a variety of songs to him, such as "Sugar, honey honey" by the Archies, but I replace the words with "Trigger, doo do do do do do, Oh Trigger Trigger!" and he LOVES this, he mimics it back a lot, but he is tone-deaf and is never on pitch. He also like to take bits and pieces from a lot of songs that I sing to him and mix them up into new songs of his own creation which are unbelievably funny. :D

That's all I can think of at the moment.
 
I think i mentioned in my thread , my quakers are in huge just saying bird all drawn out " burrrrrd " over and over try to drawn me out and then they laugh. Like 100 times a day . Right now burrrd is all they are saying

They can say all 3 of them ( but not often lately (
Are you a good girl?
Are you a good burd?
Good birdie
Hello
Kiss ( noise)
Laughing
Pretty pretty birdie
Pretty girl
What?
Wolf whistlin
Come here
Baby birdie
Little baby
Good boy
up
Peekaboo
Phoebe
Lovrs to say ahhhh
and arooooo!
Penny all the above plus all of tge following ( but not often) dog barking, dog whimper/wine( loves to tease the dogs with sneak barks )
Cat meow
Microwave beep
alarm ( like alarm clock)
mechanical noises
door squeaky
smoke alarm dead battery beeps
quaking
really loves mechanical or house noises to mimic
Has said cuss words and cuss phrases in the

My green cheek Ta-dah
Whats up little bird?
I love you
No
What are you doing?
Who's a pretty girl?
Pretty girl
Pretty burd
Hello
Hi
Come here
Touch me
Pet me
Happy birthday girl
Burt the burd ( she misses her and says her name often)
Did I mention No lol cus she says that a lot and means it when she says it.
Tickle Tickle
Mimics cough and sneezing if I do she does right after
 
Yoda (GCC) says "Hi Yoda!" very clearly and on command. The other things he says aren't clear to anyone but me. His pooping command is "Fire in the hole!" and he says that whenever he flies to his perch and poops, because he knows he'll get treats and/or picked up for doing so. To anyone but my it just sounds like he is saying "Chirpy-chirpy Chirp!". He also says I love you but to anyone but me it sounds like "Pew pew pew!". Finally, he imitates my laugh which is HYSTERICALLY funny because he sounds like Burt from Sesame Street because it's lacking any tonal changes, so it's a robotic little Heh heh heh heh heh heh heh sound that makes me laugh so hard.

Trigger (African Grey) says and mimics SO MUCH! He learns something new every day and he just blows our minds. Here's all that I can think of just now:
  1. Hi!!!
  2. I'm home!
  3. Hi Trigger!
  4. Hi Yoda! (he can say this in my voice and also in Yoda's chirpy voice, and his favorite game is to say it in my voice, then Yoda's voice, and back and forth, over and over... lol)
  5. Look at me! Look at me!!
  6. Peekaboo!
  7. I see you!!!
  8. Pew pew!
  9. Corn!
  10. Oooh peapod!
  11. Gulp gulp? (which means he's thirsty)
  12. Treat? Treat?
  13. Lunchy's ready!
  14. Trigger! (angry sounding)
  15. No Biting!
  16. Trigger... stop... Trigger.... Let go! Let go Trigger! (if you guessed this is because he sometimes bites and will NOT let go... sigh)
  17. I love you!
  18. I love you Trigger!
  19. Awwwwwww! (like Aww so cute!)
  20. Trigger, you're so cute!!
  21. You're so funny Trigger!
  22. Oh my god! Oh my god! (my voice, pretending to be panicking scared, which I've done making fun of him for getting randomly panicked by a loud noise or Yoda chirping. Especially funny when he is flying around in circles calling out Oh my God! Oh my God!!!)
  23. Yoda! Yoda come! Come here Yoda!
  24. Yoda, fire in the hole!
  25. Step up! Step Up Trigger!
  26. Good boy!!!
  27. Good boy Trigger!!
  28. Achoo! (perfect imitation of my sneeze)
  29. Gesundheit!
  30. Thank you
  31. You're welcome!
  32. Birdies birdies birdies!! (which I saw when it's meal time)
  33. (Microwave beeping)
  34. Yay Birds. (in a sarcastic tone, I often say this when they do something frustrating, in loving but exasperated way. ;) )
  35. Good morning!
  36. What are you doing?
  37. (random nonsense that perfectly mimic our conversations, he LOVES doing this while we are talking to each other, especially if we pause and pretend he's part of the conversation).
  38. My laughter
  39. My coughing
  40. My various whistled tunes (Looney tunes especially)

I sing a variety of songs to him, such as "Sugar, honey honey" by the Archies, but I replace the words with "Trigger, doo do do do do do, Oh Trigger Trigger!" and he LOVES this, he mimics it back a lot, but he is tone-deaf and is never on pitch. He also like to take bits and pieces from a lot of songs that I sing to him and mix them up into new songs of his own creation which are unbelievably funny. :D

That's all I can think of at the moment.
I forgot a bunch! Here's some more that Trigger says....

41. Do you want some coffee?
42. I'm gonna go shower
43. Do you want to come out?
44. Tickle tickle!
45. Whoa.
46. (perfectly accurate and perfectly LOUD imitations of Yoda screaming... sigh)
47. I'm sorry! (He said this one time when I had him wrapped up in a towel to give him medicine and it just about broke my heart!)
48. Are you ok?
49. It's ok... it's ok... (comfortingly)
50. Wolfy Wolfy! (my nickname for my husband :) )
51. Mousy Mousy! (my husband's nickname for me :D ) (he clearly knows all of us by name, because he will call out to us and we always answer to our names, so he definitely recognizes which names go with which person/bird)
52. Yodabird!! (my nickname for Yoda...lol)
53. (Kissing, quite a variety of kissy noises)
54. Love you! (He says I love you and Love you in a wide variety of ways... mimicking all of the different ways I say it to him or my husband)
55. Hello!
56. I love you Triggerbird! (and I love you Yodabird, I love you Mousy, I love you Wolfy)
57. Lunchy time!
58. That's my birdy!
59. Dammit (fortunately he only mimics words that I say, so this is the most foul language he says. We're lucky he doesn't mimic my husband's vocabulary because I never cuss anything worse than Dammit lol!)
60. Wanna go for a walk?
61. Trigger Trigger Trigger! (in a sing-song way that I often say to him)
62. Trigger, get down! Get DOWN!
63. Do you want some corn?
64. Mmmmmm corn!! (he LOVES corn... lol)
 
I think i mentioned in my thread , my quakers are in huge just saying bird all drawn out " burrrrrd " over and over try to drawn me out and then they laugh. Like 100 times a day . Right now burrrd is all they are saying

They can say all 3 of them ( but not often lately (
Are you a good girl?
Are you a good burd?
Good birdie
Hello
Kiss ( noise)
Laughing
Pretty pretty birdie
Pretty girl
What?
Wolf whistlin
Come here
Baby birdie
Little baby
Good boy
up
Peekaboo
Phoebe
Lovrs to say ahhhh
and arooooo!
Penny all the above plus all of tge following ( but not often) dog barking, dog whimper/wine( loves to tease the dogs with sneak barks )
Cat meow
Microwave beep
alarm ( like alarm clock)
mechanical noises
door squeaky
smoke alarm dead battery beeps
quaking
really loves mechanical or house noises to mimic
Has said cuss words and cuss phrases in the

My green cheek Ta-dah
Whats up little bird?
I love you
No
What are you doing?
Who's a pretty girl?
Pretty girl
Pretty burd
Hello
Hi
Come here
Touch me
Pet me
Happy birthday girl
Burt the burd ( she misses her and says her name often)
Did I mention No lol cus she says that a lot and means it when she says it.
Tickle Tickle
Mimics cough and sneezing if I do she does right after
Wow, I'm really impressed by how much Ta-dah can say! She's quite a talker!
 
When you see articles and scientists describe how much different parrots typically speak and they say 300-500 words, or 100-150 words, and so on... do you think they are saying the number of different individual words, or is that more of a number of sounds/things they say? I'm wondering what that number actually means...
 
well my StanLee was a rescue and he is about 5 years old- I would LOVE to be able to get him to speak more words.. But he says Apple ( for anything that has to do with food. If he wants food or sees you eating he says Food. If he hears a weird or unknown sound he says Whaaaaaaaaaaaaat? If you ask him if he is a good boy he shakes his head up and down.I just recently taught him how to "shake". He does make grinding npoises and growls if he is angry.
 
Charlie, my conure says the following:

Step up
Chris
Christopher
Huh?
What? (His favorite thing to say)
Heep (This is both our thing. He made that sound once, and I started copying him. Then he started copying me. He screams it at a high pitch usually when the vacuum or shower is running.)

And demonic garbling when it's nighttime and he doesn't want to sleep.
 
Willow Quaker: Come here. Come on.
Step up.
Good bird or good boy
Gives kisses. Laughs.
Lots of unintelligible muttering in cage in the morning before I am awake and Willow is having a morning happy time.

Jasper (Meyers parrot)
Whatcha doinā€™, Jasper bird?
Ri rove roo. (I love you.)
Bird, Good bird.
Jasper bird.
Clicks instead of kisses.
Sneezes like a human.
Iā€™m sure Iā€™m forgetting some.

I used to have a Quaker (Lucy) who talked a lot and asked for or told me what she wanted. She had, I am sure more than 100 words. And she sounded quite clear and a lot like me. Bird could enunciate. For example:

Step up.
Out!
Good bird. Good girl.
Thank you! (After gift or food)
Stop it. Stop knock it off get down right now!
Want drink! Want some.
Come in! (response to knock)
Mommah! (very rare; she called me mooey or good good bird)
drinking noise, water dripping/urinating noise, childproof medication bottle opening, setting utensil down on counter
burp, sneeze, fart, laugh, maniacal laughter and then breathless wheeze Jamie! Whereā€™s Jamie!
Itā€™s OK or Itā€™s O-cage.
Go night night, good night! (When wants to return to cage or wants me to be quiet at night.).
Be good. You be good, bird. Be nice.
Be Quiet!
Bad bird! Shut up. (Rare but sometimes).
Whisper. Spspspspā€¦ Or wisp bird?
ā€œIā€™m a little Quaker green and stout, open up my cage and let me out.ā€(And all individual words from that)
hello! Hi Lucy! Hi Lucybird!
Goodbye! (When she or another exits or waves) or sometimes if she wanted s/o to go away
come in. Come here, come on.
Ouch.
Oh sh!t. (When upset or hearing alarm clock).

And much much more. Lucy could rhyme and everything. She tried to sing but did not carry a tune. I note that she referred to herself as ā€œbirdā€ or ā€œLucybirdā€ and sometimes called me or ex husband ā€œgood birdā€ or ā€œgood good birdā€

I could tell Lucy wasnā€™t feeling well or towards the end of her life (20-21 yrs +) because she talked less although she did call out for me ā€œmommah!ā€ a couple of days before the end. I have no doubt that she could think and express what she desired. A creature that is rude is thinking!

I really miss Lucy and wish Iā€™d recorded her talking. I have a few clips from when she was on a radio pledge show with me, thanking pledgers and saying goodbye at sign off.

I note that Willow doesnā€™t talk much but he does a lot of eye contact and gestures with head and beak. Like imitating drinking when wants a drink or smacking beak when sees tasty food.
 
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