Parrot Bird Quotes

She liked anything orange: leaves; some moons; marigolds; chrysanthemums; cheese; pumpkin, both in pie and out; orange juice; marmalade. Orange is bright and demanding. You can't ignore orange things. She once saw an orange parrot in the pet store and had never wanted anything so much in her life. She would have named it Halloween and fed it butterscotch. Her mother said butterscotch would make a bird sick and, besides, the dog would certainly eat it up. September never spoke to the dog again — on principle.

A moment of happiness, you and I sitting on the verandah, apparently two, but one in soul, you and I. We feel the flowing water of life here, you and I, with the garden's beauty and the birds singing. The stars will be watching us, and we will show them what it is to be a thin crescent moon. You and I unselfed, will be together, indifferent to idle speculation, you and I. The parrots of heaven will be cracking sugar as we laugh together, you and I. In one form upon this earth, and in another form in a timeless sweet land.

Boner," Peanut said. "Oh no," Jade said to the parrot. "No, no, no...you can't say- "Boner" "Oh G-d" Jade panicked. "Peanut-" "Pretty bird," Dell broke in, smiling at the parrot and speaking low and soft. "Such a pretty girl, Peanut." Peanut preened under his admiring tone. "Pretty Peanut.

Maybe it’s not a lesson so much as it’s a magic trick. You can make a little girl into anything if you say the right words. Take her apart until all that’s left is her red, red heart thumping against the world. Stitch her up again real good. Now, maybe you get a woman. If you’re lucky. If that’s what you were after. Just as easy to end up with a blackbird or a circus bear or a coyote. Or a parrot, just saying what’s said to you, doing what’s done to you, copying until it comes so natural that even when you’re all alone you keep on cawing hello pretty bird at the dark.

I don't mind taking orders from them as has the right to give them," she said, "but take orders from that ridiculous bird I will not.

New Rule: A dog is the only animal that can get you laid. No offense, parrot guy, but it's not gonna happen. When women see you, they're not thinking, "I bet that guy is interesting," they're thinking, "That bird better not shit on my dress.

Where do songs go when you cease to hear them? Where does the turbulence of the air disappear after thousands of birds flap their wings homeward at eventide? Where are the cries of the Rajput women who spatter their red palm prints on the wall and leap into the flames of johar? Where is my childhood, my catapult, my broken slate, my first parrot, my youth and first sin and all those that followed, where is my old age and the first time I saw the woman from Merta? Ask Gambhiree. She knows it all.

That’s when he finds them. Birds. Mammals. Reptiles. That one was George—a Cheetah with the most flaming fur. That one was Gogy—a gorilla with the clearest pair of eyes. That one was Ms. Mimbo—a hybrid of Macao and African Grey Parrot. And the one near the stone was … well, the Monk goes through around three dozen names. It took fifty years of careful watch to make sure they don’t go extinct. If you live long enough, you might, as well, end up befriending every life your neighboring forest holds. And if you are a war hero, you might even get professionals from the Wildlife Conservation Board to help you during their crossbreeding process. But they’re all dead.

There can be no question that parrots have more intellect than any other kind of bird, and it is this that makes them such favourite pets and brings upon them so many sorrows. ...Men will buy them ... and carry them off to all quarters of the native town, intending, I doubt not, to treat them kindly; but "the tender mercies of the wicked are cruel", and confinement in a solitary cell, the discipline with which we reform hardened criminals, is misery enough to a bird with an active mind, without the superadded horrors of ... life in a tin case, hung from a nail in the wall of a dark shop... Why does the Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals never look into the woes of parrots? ... However happy you make her captivity, imagination will carry her at times to the green field and blue sky, and she fancies herself somewhere near the sun, heading a long file of exultant companions in swift career through the whistling air. Then she opens her mouth and rings out a wild salute to all parrots in the far world below her.

To be honest, owls aren’t the brightest of birds, amazing as they are; parrots and crows are much smarter. It’s all in the eyes: those magnificent piercing optics are what make all owls look like they are deep in concentrated scrutiny and steeped in long-lost knowledge.

Throughout his life--as a child, poor and meanly treated, as a foot-loose youth, as an imprisoned man--the yellow bird, huge and parrot-faced, had soared across Perry's dreams, an avenging angel who savaged his enemies or, as now, rescued him in moments of mortal danger.

Before the man lost his sight, he read this story in a magazine: a group of explorers came upon a community of parrots speaking the language of a society that had been wiped out in a recent catastrophe. Astonished by their discovery, they put the parrots in cages and sent them home so that linguists could record what remained of the lost language. But the parrots, already traumatized by the devastation they had recently witnessed, died on the way. The man feels a great fraternity with those birds. He feels he carries, like them, a shredded inheritance, and he is too concussed to pass anything on.

Ducks are the stars of the karaoke bird world. You’d think it would be songbirds or parrots (or boobies, because who doesn’t like to see those on stage?), but nope, they all quit going down to the corner bar to try to impress the locals with their vocals, and they joined TikTok so they could dance their way to fame.

We're mimics, we're parrots - we're writers.

Recalling a line attributed to Wilbur—“Well, if I talked a lot I should be like a parrot, which is the bird that speaks most and flies least.”—Buist

A parrot's gift is to talk; an eagle's gift is to fly. I'd rather be an eagle.

To my mind, there is nothing better than hanging out with a petite, feathery sidekick all day long. - Love and Feathers

Imagine if you will the most creative, energetic, and affectionate kitten or puppy you've ever experienced. Then add wings. - Love and Feathers

When I have guests over I don't have to worry about making conversation. Pearl takes care of that. - Love and Feathers

Parrots typically operate on one volume, "LOUD." Sometimes they will vary this with "extra LOUD" and "unbearably LOUD." - Love and Feathers

Mr. Jamrach led me through the lobby and into the menagerie. The first was a parrot room, a fearsome screaming place of mad round eyes, crimson breasts that beat against bars, wings that flapped against their neighbours, blood red, royal blue, gypsy yellow, grass green. The birds were crammed along perches. Macaws hung upside down here and there, batting their white eyes, and small green parrots flittered above our heads in drifts. A hot of cockatoos looked down from on high over the shrill madness, high crested, creamy breasted. The screeching was like laughter in hell.

An earth-shaking ROAR! drowned out Sophie’s reply. “What was that?” Sophie glanced over her shoulder, sure she’d spot some sort of hungry beast come to devour them. Biana pointed to a high branch, where a black parrot-size bird watched over them with glittering dark eyes. “Don’t worry, it’s just a boobrie.” “That’s seriously its name?” “Yup. You should hear the jokes Fitz and Keefe make.

The most startling finding in recent work on animal intelligence is how smart some birds are, especially parrots and crows. Birds have quite small brains in absolute terms, but very high-powered ones.

I've heard a tape of collected kakapo noises, and it's almost impossible to believe that it all just comes from a bird, or indeed any kind of animal. Pink Floyd studio out-takes perhaps, but not a parrot.

Crom!” muttered the Cimmerian. “Here is the grandfather of all parrots. He must be a thousand years old! Look at the evil wisdom of his eyes. What mysteries do you guard, Wise Devil?” Abruptly the bird spread its flaming wings and soaring from its perch, cried out harshly: “Yagkoolan yok tha, xuthalla!” and with a wild screech of horribly human laughter, rushed away through the trees to vanish in the opalescent shadows.

Help!” screeched a feminine voice. “HELP ME!” Parker whipped around, automatically reaching for the weapon that he didn’t have at the small of his back because, oh yeah, he was in running gear with no place to hide a weapon. But there was no woman. Just a huge parrot perched on a printer at the front desk. “Help!” it squeaked in a shockingly authentic woman’s voice. “I’ve been turned into a parrot!” “Peanut, play dead,” Wyatt said. Peanut sighed and tucked her head into her feathers. “Good parrot.” Wyatt looked at Parker. “She’s a nut.” “Damn, shit, farts,” the bird muttered beneath her breath, making Parker grin. Wyatt sighed. “Peanut’s a mimic, and Jade, our office manager, has a bit of a potty mouth.” “Boner,” Peanut said, head still tucked into her feathers. “Peanut, dead parrots don’t talk.” Wyatt turned back to Parker. “Follow me.

Parakeets do best during the day at temperatures of 60 F to 70 F / 15.6 C - 21.1 C, and should never be allowed to experience less than 40 F / 4.4 C at night. Cover the cage at night to give the bird privacy and to keep it warmer.

One of the parrots was very friendly with...Master of the Robes. He used to feed it nuts. As it nibbled from his fingers, he used to stroke its head, at which the bird appeared to enter a state of ecstasy. I very much wanted this kind of friendliness and several times tried to get a similar response, but to no avail. So I took a stick to punish it. Of course, thereafter it fled at the sight of me. This was a very good lesson in how to make friends: not by force but by compassion.

the yellow bird, huge and parrot-faced, had soared across Perry’s dreams, an avenging angel who savaged his enemies or, as now, rescued him in moments of mortal danger: “She lifted me, I could have been light as a mouse, we went up, up, I could see the Square below, men running,

A single parrot locked in a cage is the saddest sight imaginable once you've sat under a fruiting rainforest tree full of chuckling birds, deftly plucking fruits, continuously chattering to each other, and occasionally taking a break from feeding to swing by their beaks from a branch just for the hell of it.

The emperor Caesar Augustus had a parakeet who greeted him daily, and after his victory over Mark Antony in Egypt in 29 B.C., he purchased a raven whose trainer had taught him to say “Ave, Caesar Victor Imperator.” (The trainer had wisely taught another bird to say “Ave, Victor Imperator Antoni” in case the battle went the other way.)

He is a parrot legal, one of the few creatures the volcano tolerates near its cone. Perhaps because they are very good at arguing their cases.” “Arguing cases?” she asked blankly. “Parrots are talkative birds, and these ones like to perform legal tasks, though they are neither secretary-birds nor lawyer-birds. They are merely paralegals.

This was no coincidence. The best short stories and the most successful jokes have a lot in common. Each form relies on suggestion and economy. Characters have to be drawn in a few deft strokes. There's generally a setup, a reveal, a reversal, and a release. The structure is delicate. If one element fails, the edifice crumbles. In a novel you might get away with a loose line or two, a saggy paragraph, even a limp chapter. But in the joke and in the short story, the beginning and end are precisely anchored tent poles, and what lies between must pull so taut it twangs. I'm not sure if there is any pattern to these selections. I did not spend a lot of time with those that seemed afraid to tell stories, that handled plot as if it were a hair in the soup, unwelcome and embarrassing. I also tended not to revisit stories that seemed bleak without having earned it, where the emotional notes were false, or where the writing was tricked out or primped up with fashionable devices stressing form over content. I do know that the easiest and the first choices were the stories to which I had a physical response. I read Jennifer Egan's "Out of Body" clenched from head to toe by tension as her suicidal, drug-addled protagonist moves through the Manhattan night toward an unforgivable betrayal. I shed tears over two stories of childhood shadowed by unbearable memory: "The Hare's Mask," by Mark Slouka, with its piercing ending, and Claire Keegan's Irishinflected tale of neglect and rescue, "Foster." Elizabeth McCracken's "Property" also moved me, with its sudden perception shift along the wavering sightlines of loss and grief. Nathan Englander's "Free Fruit for Young Widows" opened with a gasp-inducing act of unexpected violence and evolved into an ethical Rubik's cube. A couple of stories made me laugh: Tom Bissell's "A Bridge Under Water," even as it foreshadows the dissolution of a marriage and probes what religion does for us, and to us; and Richard Powers's "To the Measures Fall," a deftly comic meditation on the uses of literature in the course of a life, and a lifetime. Some stories didn't call forth such a strong immediate response but had instead a lingering resonance. Of these, many dealt with love and its costs, leaving behind indelible images. In Megan Mayhew Bergman's "Housewifely Arts," a bereaved daughter drives miles to visit her dead mother's parrot because she yearns to hear the bird mimic her mother's voice. In Allegra Goodman's "La Vita Nuova," a jilted fiancée lets her art class paint all over her wedding dress. In Ehud Havazelet's spare and tender story, "Gurov in Manhattan," an ailing man and his aging dog must confront life's necessary losses. A complicated, only partly welcome romance blossoms between a Korean woman and her demented

Pound for pound, these animals don’t add up to much. Dog fanciers with a couple of Rottweilers trump us in terms of sheer biomass. But, when it comes to sheer insistence, even the largest, most unruly dogs—or for that matter, your average herd of cattle—are no match for our ducks, geese, parrots, parakeets, turkeys, cats, rabbits, and other birds.

According to Connelly, who heard the story from the nigger trader, Michael’s former master was fascinated by the abilities of South American parrots and reasoned that if a bird could be taught limericks, a slave might be taught to remember as well. Merely glancing at the size of the skulls told you that a nigger possessed a bigger brain than a bird.

I was sorry he had not a cat, or a young dog, or better still, an old dog. But all he had to offer in the way of dumb companions was a pink and grey parrot. He used to try and teach it to say, Nihil in intellectu, etc. These first three words the bird managed well enough, but the celebrated restriction was too much for it, all you heard was a series of squawks.

I want to hear a million robins making a frightful racket. I sort of like birds." "All women are birds," he ventured. "What kind am I?"—quick and eager. "A swallow, I think, and sometimes a bird of paradise. Most girls are sparrows, of course—see that row of nurse-maids over there? They're sparrows—or are they magpies? And of course you've met canary girls—and robin girls." "And swan girls and parrot girls. All grown women are hawks, I think, or owls." "What am I—a buzzard?" She laughed and shook her head. "Oh, no, you're not a bird at all, do you think? You're a Russian wolfhound." Anthony remembered that they were white and always looked unnaturally hungry. But then they were usually photographed with dukes and princesses, so he was properly flattered. "Dick's

Are you saying people aren’t interested in the truth?” “Listen, what’s true to a lot of people is that they need the money for the rent by the end of the week. Look at Mr. Ron and his friends. What’s the truth mean to them? They live under a bridge!” She held up a piece of lined paper, crammed edge to edge with the careful looped handwriting of someone for whom holding a pen was not a familiar activity. “This is a report of the annual meeting of the Ankh-Morpork Caged Birds Society,” she said. “They’re just ordinary people who breed canaries and things as a hobby. Their chairman lives next door to me, which is why he gave me this. This stuff is important to him! My goodness, but it’s dull. It’s all about Best of Breed and some changes in the rules about parrots which they argued about for two hours. But the people who were arguing were people who mostly spend their day mincing meat or sawing wood and basically leading little lives that are controlled by other people, do you see? They’ve got no say in who runs the city but they can damn well see to it that cockatoos aren’t lumped in with parrots. It’s not their fault. It’s just how things are. Why are you sitting there with your mouth open like that?

Her straight brown hair rarely covered her trademark earrings, which ranged from spoon-like appendages covered in sequins to hoops that a parrot could roost in. Today, she had selected a demure pair of feathers plucked from some species of bird that took mating rituals very seriously, as no fewer than ten shades of greens and blues created a pattern that could cause a seizure disorder if one stared at them too long. 

You can make a little girl into anything if you say the right words. Take her apart until all that’s left is her red, red heart thumping against the world. Stitch her up again real good. Now, maybe you get a woman. If you’re lucky. If that’s what you were after. Just as easy to end up with a blackbird or a circus bear or a coyote. Or a parrot, just saying what’s said to you, doing what’s done to you, copying until it comes so natural that even when you’re all alone you keep cawing hello pretty bird at the dark.

The Sniper Bird by Stewart Stafford "Look out!" the crowd shouted to me, "There's a Sniper Bird in those trees!" A whooshing sound shot past my ears, Making me duck down to my knees. He must have gone rogue, I reckoned, Someone cheated him over birdseed, Then he took a squirrel as his hostage, Get a negotiator quickly up those trees. He threw up his wings and surrendered, They brought him down in a gilded cage, Never again sniping at innocent people, He studies elocution with a parrot sage. © Stewart Stafford, 2022. All rights reserved.

She does say the most amusing things, doesn’t she? ‘Pretty girl,’ and ‘yes,’ and—Do you hear that one? ‘Fancy a . . .’ what? I never can catch what she’s saying at the end. It’s certainly not biscuit. ‘Fancy a cuppa,’ perhaps? But who gives a parrot tea? It sounds a great deal like ‘fancy a foxglove,’ but that makes even less sense. I don’t mind saying the mystery is driving me a bit mad.” “Fuck.” She froze. “I’m not that upset about it.” He returned to the bedchamber, now clothed in a pair of trousers and an unbuttoned shirt. “It’s what the parrot’s saying. ‘Fancy a fuck, love.’ That bird came from a whorehouse.

I do not believe any person is born knowing how to be human. Everyone has to learn their letters and everyone has to learn how to be alive. . . . . Maybe it's not a lesson so much as it's a magic trick. You can make a little girl into anything if you say the right words. Take her apart until all that's left is her red, red heart thumping against the world. Stitch her up again real good. Now, maybe you get a woman. If you're lucky. If that's what you were after. Just as easy to end up with a blackbird or a circus bear or a coyote. Or a parrot, just saying what's said to you, doing what's done to you, copying until it comes so natural that even when you're all alone, you keep on cawing __hello, pretty bird__ at the dark.

She opened her window. That’s all she did. She opened her living-room window. It took that bird like one-tenth of one second to realize the window was open and then he was sitting there on the ledge looking at the huge trees and all the other birds flying around loose. He flew away. She knew he would. She had known others who had done the same thing. This was why there are parrots in the trees in San Francisco. But after several days, the crazy lady woke up and saw her parrot sitting atop its cage, just like always. She liked to tell the story by adding, “And each day, he would go outside and have his adventures and then return at night. And that bird never hid my car keys from me again.” It’s kind of a cool story. Especially if you think life sucks. Because it doesn’t. It can. But it doesn’t. *

Chapter 28 Genghis Cat Gracing Whatever Shithole This Is, Washington, USA You can all relax now, because I am here. What did you think? I’d run for safety at the whim of a fucking parrot with under-eye bags like pinched scrotums? Did you suspect I—a ninja with feather-wand fastness and laser-pointer focus—had the spine of a banana slug? Then you are a shit-toned oink with the senses of a sniveling salamander. Then you don’t know Genghis Cat. I look around and can see that we are surrounded by The Bird Beasts, those crepe-faced, hair ball–brained fuck goblins. I intensely dislike these lumpy whatthefuckareyous who straddle between the Mediocre Servant and animal worlds, trying to be one thing and really not being, like imitation crabmeat in a sushi log that is really just fucking whitefish and WE ALL KNOW IT. “Would you like a little of the crabmeat, Genghis?” my Mediocre Servants seemed to ask with their blobfish lips and stupid faces. “THAT’S FUCKING WHITEFISH, YOU REGURGITATED MOLES!” I’d yowl, and then I’d steal the sushi log and run off and growl very much so they couldn’t have it back, and later I would pee on their night pillows for good measure. I cannot imagine their lives before me. We mustn’t think of those bleak dark ages. But the Beasts are dangerous. I have watched them morph and chew into a house. I have seen them with spider legs and second stomachs and camouflage skins. I have seen them tear the legs off a horse and steal flight from those with feathers. Orange and I have lost family to their fuckish appetites. But they are still fakish faking beasts and I’m fucking Genghis Cat. They are imitation crab and Genghis is filet mignon Fancy Feast, bitch. Probably I should come clean here and tell you that I’m immortal. I always suspected it but can confirm it now that I have surpassed the allocated nine lives. I’m somewhere around life 884, give or take seventy-eight. Some mousers have called me a god, but I insist on modesty. I also don’t deny it. I might be a god. It seems to fit. It feels right. A stealthy, striped god with an exotically spotted tummy—it seems certain, doesn’t it to you? I’m 186 percent sure at this point. Orange insists we stay away from the Beasts all the time, but I only let Orange think he’s in charge. Orange is incredibly sensitive, despite being the size of a Winnebago. He hand-raised each of my kittens and has terrible nightmares, and I have to knead my paws on him to calm him down. Orange and I have a deal. I will kill anything that comes to harm Orange and Orange will continue to be the reason I purr.

But I never forgot Shosha. I dreamed of her at night. In my dreams she was both dead and alive. I played with her in a garden which was also a cemetery. Dead girls joined us there, wearing garments that were ornate shrouds. They danced in circles and sang songs. They swung, skated, occasionally hovered in the air. The birds there were different from any I knew. They were as big as eagles, as colorful as parrots. They spoke Yiddish. From the thickets surrounding the garden, beasts with human faces showed themselves. Shosha was at home in this garden, and instead of my pointing out and explaining to her as I had done in the past, she revealed to me things I hadn't known and whispered secrets in my ear. Her hair had grown long enough to reach her loins, and her flesh glowed like mother-of-pearl. I always awoke from this dream with a sweet taste in my mouth and the impression that Shosha was on longer living.

Poppy wiped his sweating face with a dry cloth. “Poor Merripen.” She brought a cup of water to his lips. When he tried to refuse, she slid an arm beneath his head and raised it insistently. “Yes, you must. I should have known you’d be a terrible patient. Drink, dear, or I’ll be forced to sing something.” Amelia stifled a grin as Merripen complied. “Your singing isn’t that terrible, Poppy. Father always said you sang like a bird.” “He meant a parrot,” Merripen said hoarsely, leaning his head on Poppy’s arm. “Just for that,” Poppy informed him, “I’m going to send Beatrix in here to look after you today. She’ll probably put one of her pets in bed with you, and spread her jacks all over the floor. And if you’re very lucky, she’ll bring in her glue pots, and you can help make paper-doll clothes.” Merripen gave Amelia a glance rife with muted suffering, and she laughed. “If that doesn’t inspire you to get well quickly, dear, nothing will.

Amy was on the point of crying, but Laurie slyly pulled the parrot's tail, which caused Polly to utter an astonished croak and call out, "Bless my boots!" in such a funny way, that she laughed instead. "What do you hear from your mother?" asked the old lady gruffly. "Father is much better," replied Jo, trying to keep sober. "Oh, is he? Well, that won't last long, I fancy. March never had any stamina," was the cheerful reply. "Ha, ha! Never say die, take a pinch of snuff, goodbye, goodbye!" squalled Polly, dancing on her perch, and clawing at the old lady's cap as Laurie tweaked him in the rear. "Hold your tongue, you disrespectful old bird! And, Jo, you'd better go at once. It isn't proper to be gadding about so late with a rattlepated boy like . . ." "Hold your tongue, you disrespectful old bird!" cried Polly, tumbling off the chair with a bounce, and running to peck the `rattlepated' boy, who was shaking with laughter at the last speech.

But I never forgot Shosha. I dreamed of her at night. In my dreams she was both dead and alive. I played with her in a garden which was also a cemetery. Dead girls joined us there, wearing garments that were ornate shrouds. They danced in circles and sang songs. They swung, skated, occasionally hovered in the air. I strolled with Shosha in a forest of gigantic trees that reached the sky. The birds there were different from any I knew. They were as big as eagles, as colorful as parrots. They spoke Yiddish. From the thickets surrounding the garden, beasts with human faces showed themselves. Shosha was at home in this garden, and instead of my pointing out and explaining to her as I had done in the past, she revealed to me things I hadn't known and whispered secrets in my ear. Her hair had grown long enough to reach her loins, and her flesh glowed like mother-of-pearl. I always awoke from this dream with a sweet taste in my mouth and the impression that Shosha was on longer living.

A bird doesn't need a professor to teach it how to fly. A fish doesn't need a professor to teach it how to swim. A bee doesn't need a professor to teach it how to sting. A termite doesn't need a professor to teach it how to build. A spider doesn't need a professor to teach it how to weave. A cricket doesn't need a professor to teach it how to sing. A parrot doesn't need a professor to teach it how to mimic. A serpent doesn't need a professor to teach it how to bite. A chameleon doesn't need a professor to teach it how to camouflage. A sheep doesn't need a professor to teach it how to follow. A horse doesn't need a professor to teach it how to sprint. A monkey doesn't need a professor to teach it how to steal. A camel doesn't need a professor to teach it how to survive. A dog doesn't need a professor to teach it how to bark. A cheetah doesn't need a professor to teach it how to race. A fox doesn't need a professor to teach it how to scheme. A crocodile doesn't need a professor to teach it how to float. An hyena doesn't need a professor to teach it how to stalk. A panther doesn't need a professor to teach it how to strike. A wolf doesn't need a professor to teach it how to kill. A lion doesn't need a professor to teach it how to hunt.

And thus when by poetyr or wehn by music the most entrancing of the poetic moods we find ourselves melted into tears, we weep then not as the abbate gravina supposes through excess of pleasure but through a certain petulatn impatient sorrow at our inability to grasp no wholly here on earth at once and forever these divein and rapturous joys of which through the poem or through the music we attain to but brief and indeterminate glimpses. The struggle to apprehend the supernal loveliness this struggle on the part of souls fittingly constituted has given to the world all that which it (the world) has ever been enabled at once to understand and to feel as peotic whose distant footsteps echo down the corridors of time The impression left is one of pleasurable sadness. This certain taint of sadness is insperably connected with al the higher manifestations of true beauty . It is nevertheless. Beauty is the sole legitimate province of the poem. Melancholy is thus the most legitimate of all the poetical tones. The next desideratum was a pretext for the continous use of the one word nevermore.in observing the difficutly which i at once found in inventing a suffiecienly plausible reason for its continuous repetition i did not fail to preceive thta this difficutly arose solely form the pre assumption that the world was to be so continuously or monotonously spoke by a human being i did not fail to perceive in shor t that the difficulty lay in the reconciliation of this monotony with the exercise of reason on the part of the creature repeating the word here then immediately arose the idea of a non-reasoning creature capable of speech and very naturally a parrot in the first instance suggested itself but was superseded forthwith by a raven as equally capable of speech and infinitely more in keeping with the intended tone.“I had now gone so far as the conception of a Raven, the bird of ill-omen, monotonously repeating the one word "Nevermore" at the conclusion of each stanza in a poem of melancholy tone, and in length about one hundred lines. Now, never losing sight of the object _supremeness_ or perfection at all points, I asked myself--"Of all melancholy topics what, according to the _universal_ understanding of mankind, is the _most_ melancholy?" Death, was the obvious reply. "And when," I said, "is this most melancholy of topics most poetical?" From what I have already explained at some length, the answer here also is obvious--"When it most closely allies itself to _Beauty_; the death, then, of a beautiful woman is unquestionably the most poetical topic in the world, and equally is it beyond doubt that the lips best suited for such topic are those of a bereaved lover.

He'd found a sweet-water stream that I drank from, and for dinner we found winkles that we ate baked on stones. We watched the sun set like a peach on the sea, making plans on how we might live till a ship called by. Next we made a better camp beside a river and had ourselves a pretty bathing pool all bordered with ferns; lovely it was, with marvelous red parrots chasing through the trees. Our home was a hut made of branches thatched with flat leaves, a right cozy place to sleep in. We had fat birds that Jack snared for our dinner, and made fire using a shard of looking glass I found in my pocket. We had lost the compass in the water, but didn't lament it. I roasted fish and winkles in the embers. For entertainment we even had Jack's penny whistle. It was a paradise, it was." "You loved him," her mistress said softly, as her pencil resumed its hissing across the paper. Peg fought a choking feeling in her chest. Aye, she had loved him- a damned sight more than this woman could ever know. "He loved me like his own breath," she said, in a voice that was dangerously plaintive. "He said he thanked God for the day he met me." Peg's eyes brimmed full; she was as weak as water. The rest of her tale stuck in her throat like a fishbone. Mrs. Croxon murmured that Peg might be released from her pose. Peg stared into space, again seeing Jack's face, so fierce and true. He had looked down so gently on her pitiful self; on her bruises and her bony body dressed in salt-hard rags. His blue eyes had met hers like a beacon shining on her naked soul. "I see past your always acting the tough girl," he insisted with boyish stubbornness. "I'll be taking care of you now. So that's settled." And she'd thought to herself, so this is it, girl. All them love stories, all them ballads that you always thought were a load of old tripe- love has found you out, and here you are. Mrs. Croxon returned with a glass of water, and Peg drank greedily. She forced herself to continue with self-mocking gusto. "When we lay down together in our grass house we whispered vows to stay true for ever and a day. We took pleasure from each other's bodies, and I can tell you, mistress, he were no green youth, but all grown man. So we were man and wife before God- and that's the truth." She faced out Mrs. Croxon with a bold stare. "You probably think such as me don't love so strong and tender, but I loved Jack Pierce like we was both put on earth just to find each other. And that night I made a wish," Peg said, raising herself as if from a trance, "a foolish wish it were- that me and Jack might never be rescued. That the rotten world would just leave us be.

pranced to her cub's side. "Lucky!" she yelled. "How many times do I have to tell you to go home and stay with your siblings? You are a tiny lion cub, not a brave adventurer!" The mother lizard smiled up at Lucky. "Actually, I'm not so sure," she said. "This little cub travelled across the entire jungle and brought my lost baby home. That makes him the bravest, greatest adventurer this jungle has ever seen!" Lucky's mother's jaw dropped. She looked at the lizard. She looked at Lucky. Then she smiled. "You have proven me wrong. You really are a great adventurer! But a tiny cub like you, traveling across the entire jungle? How did you do it?" she asked. "Roar!" Lucky cried. He stood tall, puffed up his chest and said; "Because I am Lucky!" Lucky and Pec the parrot’s great adventure! The next day, Lucky was feeling especially brave. After all he saved a little lizard from the dangers of the jungle and brought him safely home. His mother was so proud of him that she didn't even punish him for not babysitting his brothers and sisters! She even gave him the best part of their meal for dinner. And he had permission to spend 2 hours in the jungle this very morning. But he had to stay close to home and come back in time to babysit his younger brother and sisters. "There is much adventuring to be done in just 2 hours!" he said to himself, as walked under the shady green canopy, following a path into the jungle. "But I am the bravest, greatest adventurer in the jungle. Watch out jungle! Here I come! Roooaaaar! “Suddenly he saw the tall grass to his right sway, but there wasn't any wind. The grass rustled as if someone was moving around. Lucky crouched down in his stalking pose that he had practiced as part of his adventure skills. He crept forward, his golden-green eyes wide and fixed on the swaying grass. Slowly, oh so slowly he moved closer and closer. He was right in front of the tall green grass, and heard the rustling again. "ROOOOOAAAARRR!" He burst through the grass with his very best roar and his very best pounce. "AAAAACCCCCCKKKKKK" screeched a large shiny grey parrot. "What is wrong with you?! It is extremely rude to just bust into a parrot's home without knocking! I swear, kids these days just don't have any manners!" The parrot shrieked right into Lucky's ear. "Owwww. Stop it! I am a brave adventurer and I am saving you!" Lucky snapped back, "It's also rude to yell in the ear of the lion saving your life" The parrot's head feathers stood up on the back of his head like he had a mohawk, and he glared at Lucky from piercing yellow eyes. "Lions are known to eat birds like me. I am not going to let my glorious self, become your breakfast. I am a mighty warrior and if you eat me, I will give you a very upset belly. I promise". Lucky laughed a barky lion laugh, "I do not eat birds. My mother is a great hunter and brings home only the biggest and fattest of animals for us to eat. Besides, I will be a great adventurer, the greatest and bravest in the jungle". Pec's shimmering grey head feathers slowly lowered. He shook his head, stuck his beak under his wing and looked at Lucky from the corner of his yellowish eye. "A brave adventurer, hmm? You look more like a little lion cub getting into mischief" he said as he brought his head from under his wing. “My name is Pec. What is yours?" he asked. "My name is Lucky and I don't get into mischief. Just yesterday I saved a lizard from a deep, scary crack in the ground. He could have died. I even took him home and it was a long ways away" Lucky said as proudly as he could after being squawked at by a big feathery bird. Pec's eyes twinkled at him and he opened his sharply hooked beak letting out a squeaky laugh. "I believe you, young Lucky. And, since you are so good at helping others, could you

Californians spoke derisively of all the exotic birds that had established feral populations in Florida, conveniently ignoring the fact that the Los Angeles basin was also full of escaped parrots and the like.

We can’t afford to winter here, we’ll have to move while we can still get out to sea.” “Fine with me. I’m not sure I can take even another week here. The food—” “Not a Meat Olaf fancier, I gather.” “Can anything be done?” “Well, it’s supposed to be for emergencies, but I guess this qualifies as one.” Unlocking a black valise and gazing inside for a moment. “Here you go,” handing over an ancient hand-blown bottle whose label, carefully engraved and printed in an unfaded spectrum of tropical colors, showed an erupting volcano, a parrot with a disdainful smile and the legend ¡Cuidado Cabrón! Salsa Explosiva La Original. “Couple of drops is all you’ll need really to light that Meat Olaf right up, not that I’m being stingy, understand. My father handed this on to me, as did his father to him, and it isn’t down by even a quarter of an inch yet, so do exercise caution’s all I’m saying.” As expected, this advice was ignored, and next mealtime the bottle got passed around and everybody slopped on the salsa. The evening that resulted was notable for hysteria and recrimination. The luxuriant world of the parrot on the label, though seemingly as remote from this severe ice-scape as could be imagined, in fact was separated from it by only the thinnest of membranes. To get from one to the other one had only to fill one’s attention unremittingly with the bird’s image, abasing oneself meantime before his contempt, and repeat “¡Cuidado cabrón!” preferably with a parrot accent, until the phrase no longer had meaning—though in practice, of course, the number of repetitions was known to run into the millions, even as it ran listeners’ forbearance into the ground. In thus acquiring some of the force of a Tibetan prayer-wheel, the practice was thought to serve as an open-sesame to the Tsangpo-Brahmaputra country as well, a point which old Expedition hands were not reluctant to bring up.

When you believe, beautiful things will happen if you have the faith of a bird seed, or believe in parrots who talk!

The Happy Crow Once upon a time, there lived a crow in a forest. This crow was absolutely satisfied and happy with its life. One day it happened to go to a pond to drink water. It looked at its reflection in the water and turned its face this way and that. It preened its wings and thought about how shiny they were. The crow was convinced of its beauty. But then he saw a white swan swim by. Some ducks standing near the pond laughed at the crow for its black color and complimented and praised the swan. The crow was full of admiration for the swan. He told the swan that it was beautiful and also added, “you must be the happiest bird in the world.” The swan, however, did not appear so happy. When the crow asked her the reason the swan replied, “I also thought that I was the most beautiful and the happiest bird around, until I saw the parrot. You will not believe it. You and I have just one color, but the parrot has two, green and red. In my opinion, the parrot must be the happiest bird in the world.” The crow was intrigued and went to meet the parrot. When he saw the parrot, he too was convinced that it was indeed the most beautiful bird in the forest. When the crow asked the parrot, “you must be the happiest bird in the forest,” the parrot laughed and said, “I too lived under the same illusion, until I saw the peacock. You won’t believe how beautiful the peacock is. I have never seen a more colorful bird.” The inquisitive crow now went to meet the peacock and indeed it was the most colorful bird anyone could imagine. It danced happily with its wings spread and the crow watched mesmerized. However, a bird catcher hiding in the bush too had the same reaction and he captured the colorful peacock. The colorful parrot and the white swan too could not escape this fate. However, the crow with its shiny feathers and lustrous wings escaped this fate. The society’s bias against dark color saved the crow. The peacock, parrot, and swan looked at the crow flying about freely and thought “this must be the happiest bird in the world.

We successfully eradicated the bright green and yellow Carolina parakeet, our only native parrot and one of America’s most beautiful birds (look at Audubon’s painting of them sometime) because, as with coyotes, agriculturalists thought they were pests whose lives weren’t worth the space the creatures were taking up. During this unique and

When they left the hotel to find a restaurant, the weather had improved and a magnificent sunset was visible. Palm trees swayed in a gentle breeze and the chatter of myna birds and parrots could be heard. As the group strolled along, Chet gazed at the first seafood restaurant they came to with such a hungry expression that the others permitted him to lead them into it. After a hearty meal they walked back to the hotel. Chet, burdened down by the two large lobsters he had devoured, trailed behind the others at a snail’s pace.

First there were the indoor animals. Leeda took all five dogs out on their leashes, letting herself be dragged along as they sniffed at this rock, trotted to that tree, and wrestled with one another exuberantly. She smiled, watching them. They were like clowns. Constantly ridiculous. Once she managed to drag them back inside and foist each dog into its pen, she filled all the food and water bowls. She cleaned the parrot cage and managed not to feel like gagging. She rubbed the parrot on the back of his head, which she'd discovered was his favorite spot. She thought about Birdie catching impetigo from her chicken. She could see now how one might not be totally disgusted to kiss a bird. The parrot looked at her with such human curiosity. Birdie had named him Chiquito and had nuzzled her nose to his. Now Leeda tried it, half afraid she'd lose her nose. But Chiquito nestled into her and made a low sound of contentment in the back of his throat.

As the Chinese translation of the name Sukhāvatī suggests, it is a land of supreme joy. The Sanskrit is of similar meaning: “that which possesses ease and comfort.” Sukhāvatī is not subject to the sufferings that plague this world and, furthermore, it is a land of surpassed beauty. It is described as having seven tiers of balustrades, seven rows of nets, and seven rows of trees, all adorned with four jewels (gold, silver, lapsis lazuli, and crystal). There is a lake of the seven jewels (gold, silver, lapis lazuli, crystal, a kind of big shell [tridacna gigas], coral, and agate), filled with water having the eight virtues. The bottom of the lake is gold sand. On the four sides of the lake are stairs (galleries) made of the four jewels. Above are towers and palaces also adorned with the seven jewels. Above are towers and palaces also adorned with the seven jewels. In the lake bloom lotus flowers as large as chariot wheels. The blue lotus flowers emit a blue light, and the yellow, red, and white lotus flowers emit light of corresponding colors. They all give forth a sweet fragrance. The delightful sound of heavenly music can be hard, and in the morning, at noon, and in the evening mandārava flowers fall from the sky and gently pile up on the golden ground. Every morning the inhabitants of the Pure Land gather these flowers with the hems of their robes and make offerings of them to myriads of buddhas in other lands. At mealtime they return to their own land, where they take their meal and stroll around. There are many kinds of birds—swans, peacocks, parrots, sharikas, kalaviṅkas, and jīvaṃjīvakas, which sing with beautiful voices, proclaiming the teachings of the Buddha. When living beings hear this song, they think about the Buddha, Dharma (“law,” or his teachings), and Saṅgha (“community of believers”). When the gentle breezes blow, the rows of four-jeweled trees and jeweled nets give forth a gentle music, like a beautiful symphony. In this land dwell Amitābha Buddha and his two attendants, the bodhisattvas Avalokitśvara and Mahāsthāmaprāpta. At their feet are those virtuous beings who have been reborn in that land because of their ardent faith. All, however, are male; women of deep faith are reborn here with male bodies. The female sex, considered inferior and unfortunate, has no place in Sukhāvatī. All people, says Śākyamuni, should ardently wish for rebirth in that land and become the companions of the most virtuous of all beings. People cannot hope for rebirth there just by performing a few good deeds, however. If living beings meditate eagerly upon the name of Amitābha for even one day with an undisturbed mind, Amitābha and his holy retinue will appear before them to receive them at the end of Life. They will enter the Pure Land with unperturbed hearts.

Wendell looked at the faerie stone in his hand, shrugged, and smashed it against the floor. Out burst a flock of parrots. The birds shrieked and squawked, and the sheerie were momentarily distracted--- not afraid, they lunged at them like cats. Each parrot seemed to be carrying a tropical flower in its beak. Wendell hurled another stone. When it smashed, glittering banners unfurled upon the museum walls, covered in the faerie script. The ceiling was suddenly painted in frescoes of Folk lounging in forest pools, surrounded by green foliage. Vases of unfamiliar flowers appeared on every surface next to bottles of wine in ice buckets, and the air filled with the muffled sound of violins, as if drifting in from the next room.

Our doggies, Chula and Jude, were preadapted to being friendly with small birds who could only flutter. They had grown up around our two small rescued parrots and our little flock of free-roving chickens. The training I devised stemmed from a simple premise. I presumed the dogs would chase because of curiosity and impulse, rather than hunger. If I did the catching for them and let them investigate at the closest range, it should quench their curiosity.

Believing that it is in the human nature to seek truth more than it seeks hope and alleviation, because a few individuals were staunch truth-seekers, is to believe that, because parrots can speak, it is in the very nature of birds to speak in human language!

It isn’t a lack of courage that prevents him from reaching out to his wife but gratitude for this moment filled with longing and contentment. Chanda Devi leans over to tell him something, but her words are drowned out by the cacophony of birds. ‘My lady,’ he says, ‘you are competing with more than five thousand parrot residents of this isle. You must speak louder.

These advertising campaigns were left to outside experts, whom Rosenstiel had learned early in his career were the best people for the job. When his company was still young, he had once trained five thousand parrots to say, “Drink Old Quaker” and then gave the birds to bartenders. (The campaign fizzled in all the disastrous ways one imagines it would.)

The raven settled back. “Dog is Cordi.” “Said that.” Percy took flight from Kate’s shoulder and landed next to the raven. “First.” Copernicus swatted the parrot with a wing. Percy ducked his head, feathers fluffing, and twisted, bumping the other bird with his rear. David intervened before a bird brawl broke out in earnest. “Enough, you two.

She reminded Juliet of the parrot the shopkeeper owned. Both the woman and bird belonged in cages, preferably the same cage, so the bird could poop on all that velvet and lace.

Up in the snow covered Andes, There’s only one beast you will see, Who is clever enough to learn all the stuff That one needs to obtain a degree. The Spectacled Bear is a wonder, The Spectacled Bear is no fool, The Spectacled Bear, with a wisdom that’s rare, Paid attention when he went to school. The Spectacled Bear learnt Spanish, The Spectacled Bear learnt to draw, The Spectacled Bear with time and with care, Could multiply twenty by four. The Spectacled Bear was a paragon, Gerald went on. He learned to write, paint, knit, weave and sing. He learned history and how to add up his sums without using his thumbs. But one thing made him ‘awfully depressed’ – he couldn’t spell, and had to sign his name with a cross. But one day someone gave him a parrot, (A bird that was badly behaved), But one thing it did well, and that was to spell, So the Spectacled Bear was saved. With this bird as his constant companion He writes letters to friends now with glee, And always you’ll find they are carefully signed: ‘Spectickled Bere, B.Sc.’ So if ever your teacher should ask you To spell words like ‘Zephyr’ or ‘Claret’, The thing I’d suggest that would be the best Is to go out and purchase a parrot. On

For their size, crows are among the brainiest organisms on Earth, outclassing not only other birds (with the possible exception of parrots), but also most mammals.

linoleum at the base of the refrigerator. The pressure-fit plastic lid, which hadn’t withstood the pressure of impact, had rolled under parrot Bella’s cage. With hearing finely tuned to recognize the distinctive characteristics of tuna-packed-in-oil slopping across the floor, Lucy had materialized to lap up the chemical spill. “How did you get in here with the door closed?” Linda said to her. “I guess I let her in before I went outdoors.” It was my latest ploy to get Lucy to like me. Snoozing under the dining room table was her latest gesture of defiance toward house rules, and I was helping her get away with it. “She doesn’t even look at the birds.

By providing safe nesting sites, woodpeckers are thus keystone organisms for a vast assemblage of birds the world over, including many owls, parrots, parids, flycatchers.

Mercury starts barking at a bunch of colourful parrots sitting in the bending fennel. I let him off the leash, and they twitter and fly away, points in a moving constellation. Dad used to say Aussie birds reminded him of fish in the reef near his village, Free, multicoloured, dreamlike.

Little Jimmy got a parrot for Christmas. The bird was fully grown, with a very bad attitude and a worse vocabulary. Every other word out of its beak was an expletive; those that weren’t expletives were, to say the least, rude. Jimmy tried to change the bird’s habits by constantly saying sweet, polite words, playing soft music, anything he could think of. Nothing worked. He yelled at the bird and the bird got worse. He shook the bird and the bird got madder and even more revolting. Finally, in a moment of desperation, Jimmy put the parrot in the freezer. For a few moments he heard the bird swearing, squawking, kicking, and screaming and then, suddenly, there was absolute quiet. Jimmy was frightened that he might have actually hurt the bird, and quickly opened the freezer door. The parrot calmly stepped out onto Jimmy’s extended arm and said, “I’m sorry that I offended you with my language and my actions, and I ask your forgiveness. I will endeavor to correct my behavior.” Jimmy was astounded at the change in the bird’s attitude and was about to ask what had changed him, when the parrot said, “May I ask what the chicken did?

A lady says to a priest, “Father, I have a problem. I have these two talking female parrots, but they only know how to say one thing.” “What do they say?” the priest asks “They only know how to say, ‘Hi, we are prostitutes. Do you want to have some fun?’” “That’s terrible! But I have a solution to your problem. Bring your two talking female parrots over to my house and I will put them with my two male talking parrots. I have taught my birds to pray and read the Bible. My parrots will teach your parrots to stop saying that terrible phrase and your parrots will learn to pray and worship.” “Thank you, Father, that’s very helpful.” The next day, the lady brings her parrots to the priest’s house. The two male birds are holding rosary beads and praying in their cage. The lady puts her females in with them and the birds immediately say, “Hi, we are prostitutes! Do you want to have some fun?” One male parrot looks over to the other one and screams, “Frank! Put the Bibles away, our prayers have been answered!

The Burglar Thinking that no one is home, a burglar breaks into a house.  He is very sneaky, quiet and doesn’t turn any lights on.  All of a sudden he hears a voice. The voice says, “I can see you and Jesus can see you.” Startled, the burglar stops in his tracks and listens.  He tries to figure out where the sound is coming from.   He doesn’t hear the voice again so he moves forward a couple of steps.  As soon as he does, he hears the same voice again, “I can see you and Jesus can see you.” The burglar decides to take out his flashlight.  He turns it on and points it in the direction of the voice.  He sees a parrot in a bird cage. “Was that you talking?” he says to the parrot. The parrot repeats, “I can see you and Jesus can see you.” Seeing this, the man says, “Ha, you are just a parrot. You can’t stop me.” “Yes, I am just a parrot,” the bird says.  “But Jesus is a Doberman!

There's this sailor with a pet parrot. But the parrot swears like an old sea captain. He can swear for five minutes straight without repeating himself! Trouble is, the sailor who owns him is a quiet, conservative type, and this bird's foul mouth is driving him crazy. One day, it gets to be too much, so the sailor grabs the bird by the throat, shakes him really hard, and yells, "QUIT IT!" But this just makes the bird mad and he swears more than ever. Then the sailor locks the bird in a kitchen cabinet. This really aggravates the bird and he claws and scratches everything inside. Finally the sailor lets the bird out. The bird cuts loose with a stream of vulgarities that would make a veteran seaman blush. The sailor is so mad that he throws the bird into the freezer. For the first few seconds there is a terrible racket from inside. Then it suddenly gets very quiet. At first the sailor just waits, but then he starts to think that the bird may be hurt. He's opens up the freezer door. The bird calmly climbs onto the man's outstretched arm and says, "Awfully sorry about the trouble I gave you. I'll do my best to improve my vocabulary from now on." The man is astounded. He can't understand the transformation that has come over the parrot. The parrot speaks again, "By the way, what did the chicken do?

Jose unfroze and began looking around the room, picking up knickknacks and checking titles on the bookshelf. The parrot cracked pistachios and watched him. "Dickhead," the parrot said. I gave the bird some more nuts. I believe in positive reinforcement.

It was after our breakfast that I was told to go up along with the parlour maid and serve the family breakfast. I was very nervous, but the parlour maid told me not to worry. So up I went, shaking in my boots, and into the breakfast room where the sideboard was laden with kidneys and rice and bacon and all sorts of delicious things. There were just four people at the table: three elderly men and a woman with a green parrot on her shoulder. Now, the thing about the parrot was that it had messed all down her shoulder and all down the front of her dress and she wasn't in the least bothered. She just smiled into the distance and every now and then fed the bird something from her hand.

own. Save a parrot’s tree. Save ten. Without our help, without needed legislative protection and worldwide consciousness-raising on their behalf, parrots will be lost in short years to come. It is fitting to end this book with this succinct summation from Wayne Pacelle, president of the Humane Society of the United States:   We are at an odd moment in history. There are more people in this country sensitized to animal protection issues than ever before. The Humane Society of the United States alone has 8 million members, and in addition, there are more than 5,000 other groups devoted to animal protection. At the same time, there are more animals being harmed than ever before—in industrial agriculture, research and testing, and the trade in wild animals. It is pitiful that our society still condones keeping millions of parrots and other wild birds as pets—wild animals that should be free to fly and instead are languishing in cages, with more being bred every day. It’s an issue of supply and demand and it’s also an issue of right and wrong. Animals suffer in confinement, and we have a moral obligation to spare them from needless suffering. Every person can make a difference every day for animals by making compassionate choices in the marketplace: don’t buy wild animals as pets, whether they are caught from the wild or bred in captivity. If we spare the life of just one animal, it’s a 100% positive impact for that creature. If we can solve the larger bird trade problem, it will be 100% positive for all parrots and other wild birds in the U.S. and beyond our borders. I believe we will look back in 50 -75 years and say “How could we as a society countenance things like the decades long imprisonment of extraordinarily intelligent animals like parrots?” Acknowledgments For this work, which took more than two and a half years to research and write, I amassed thousands of documents and conducted several hundred interviews with leading scientists, environmentalists, paleontologists, ecological economists, conservationists, global warming experts, federal law enforcement officers, animal control officers, avian researchers, avian rescuers, veterinarians, breeders, pet bird owners, bird clubs, pet bird industry executives and employees, sanctuaries and welfare organizations, legislators, and officials with the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), and other sources in the United States and around the world.

In 2012 a group of prominent neuroanatomists, cognitive neuroscientists, neurophysiologists, and ethologists released the Cambridge Declaration on Consciousness. The declaration sought to establish, once and for all, that mammals, birds, and even some cephalopods, like octopi, are conscious creatures with the capacity to experience emotions.

Believing that it is in the human nature to seek truth more than it seeks hope and alleviation, because a few individuals were staunch truth-seekers, is to believe that, because parrots can speak, it is in the nature of the birds to speak! Heraclitus, Galileo, Darwin, Spinoza, Einstein and a few thousands more against the about 117 billions who have walked the Earth…

There is a bird in my chest with wings too broad with beak that rips me wanting to get out. I have called it an idiot parrot. I have called it a ravening eagle. But it sings. Bird of no name your cries are red and wet on the iron air. I open my mouth to let you out and your shining blinds me.

An aged lady in Inverness has often narrated to the writer the delight with which, in her youth, she used to visit the Blue House, when it was the abode of a gentleman known as 'Mr. Munro, Grenada'... There were beautiful gardens and a delightful conservatory attached to the house, but the real delight of the young people, who sometimes went there on a Saturday... was a room filled with foreign birds of brilliant plumage, having among them a parrot of such remarkable powers as had never been equalled by any parrot in Inverness.

Does your pet love you? Of course your pet loves you. (Qualifier: your pet can love you if it’s a mammal or one of a few clades of birds, like a parrot. If your pet is a gecko or a python or a goldfish, your pet is probably incapable of love.) Love develops for every evolutionary pairing that requires devotion. We love our pets, and our pets love us. Dogs, in particular, are love generators who hang out with you and help you know that you’re not alone. Dog is love, unmoored.

The burrowing parrot also known as the Patagonian conure also known as the burrowing parakeet is the only bird species with eyelashes.

In fields of flowers gently swaying, Young bees sing their happy songs And pheasants strut a dance of joy. The cuckoo too Rings the bell of melody And the kalapingka bird chirps merrily along. Here the earth maiden is beautiful indeed: Her Virgin streams holding up garlands of bubbles As they laughingly dance over rocks and crags; Her orchards filled with all types of trees Laden with fruit, flowers, and leaves; And, standing behind, rings of snow mountains, Their peaks bloused in white silken clouds, Crystal glaciers their tassels And blue forests their exquisite skirt. Lapis lazuli meadows stretch below Like the wings of a parrot in flight, Nets of Lotus flowers embellishing then And wild animals grazing quietly on their slopes A fence of trees stands again behind To lock out the Thief of every distraction.

We should have a land of trees, Of tall thick trees Bowed down with chattering parrots Brilliant as the day, And not this land where birds are grey.

Along with other members of the corvid family—crows, ravens, jackdaws, rooks, jays, nutcrackers, treepies, and choughs—magpies have long been thought by scientists to be among the world’s smartest birds, with parrots a close second, and among the most intelligent of all animals.

An insect hovers nearby. She can't remember what it's called: smaller than a dragonfly, with delicate mother-of-pearl wings. It skims the surface of the beck. She stays like that for a long time, listening to the birds, the water, the insects. She shuts her eyes, opening them again when she feels something brush her hand. The dragonfly-like creature with the iridescent wings. The word swims up from the depths of her brain: a damselfly. Tears well in her eyes, surprising her. She was fascinated by insects as a child. She remembers begging her mother to spare the moths that fluttered out from wardrobes, the gauzy spider's webs that clung to the ceiling. She'd collected vividly illustrated books about them. About birds, too. She would hide under the covers reading, in the small, silent hours of the morning while her parents slept in the next room. It hurts now, to think of that little girl, her innocent wonder: flashlight in hand, turning the glossy pages and marveling at the wild and wonderful creatures. Butterflies with eyes on their wings, parrots in candy-colored plumage.

Hesitantly, I follow her up the steps to a metal door. When she opens it, I let out a gasp. A large dome glitters in the sun. Garrance opens up another door, this one glass, and I'm rendered speechless as a plethora of scents and humid air hit me, wrapping me up in Mother Nature's embrace. I'm in the islands. I'm in heaven. And I'm on a roof in Paris. I need a crane to pick up my jaw. "This is my climate-controlled greenhouse, my pride and joy." This slice of Parisian paradise is filled from floor to ceiling with tropical plants like orchids and flowering trees, moths, butterflies, and bees floating from flower to flower---not to mention the exotic birds---cockatoos, parakeets, and a couple of parrots, their plumage in reds, greens, blues, oranges, and whites.

The findings that were deemed believable enough to be published, however, revolutionized ethologists’ thinking. Ethologists began to speak less often of a chasm between man and ape; they began to speak instead of a dividing “line.” And it was a line that, in the words of Harvard primatologist Irven De Vore, was “a good deal less clear than one would ever have expected.” What makes up this line between us and our fellow primates? No longer can it be claimed to be tool use. Is it the ability to reason? Wolfgang Kohler once tested captive chimps’ reasoning ability by placing several boxes and a stick in an enclosure and hanging a banana from the high ceiling by a string. The animals quickly figured out that they could get to the banana by stacking the boxes one atop the other and then reaching to swat at the banana with a stick. (Once Geza Teleki found himself in exactly this position at Gombe. He had followed the chimpanzees down into a valley and around noon discovered he had forgotten to bring his lunch. The chimps were feeding on fruit in the trees at the time, and he decided to try to knock some fruit from nearby vines with a stick. For about ten minutes he leaped and swatted with his stick but didn’t manage to knock down any fruit. Finally an adolescent male named Sniff collected a handful of fruit, came down the tree, and dropped the fruit into Geza’s hands.) Some say language is the line that separates man from ape. But this, too, is being questioned. Captive chimpanzees, gorillas, and orangutans have been taught not only to comprehend, but also to produce language. They have been taught American Sign Language (ASL), the language of the deaf, as well as languages that use plastic chips in place of words and computer languages. One signing chimp, Washoe, often combined known signs in novel and creative ways: she had not been taught the word for swan, but upon seeing one, she signed “water-bird.” Another signing chimp, Lucy, seeing and tasting a watermelon for the first time, called it a “candy-drink”; the acidic radish she named “hurt-cry-food.” Lucy would play with toys and sign to them, much as human children talk to their dolls. Koko, the gorilla protegee of Penny Patterson, used sign language to make jokes, escape blame, describe her surroundings, tell stories, even tell lies. One of Biruté’s ex-captives, a female orangutan named Princess, was taught a number of ASL signs by Gary Shapiro. Princess used only the signs she knew would bring her food; because she was not a captive, she could not be coerced into using sign language to any ends other than those she found personally useful. Today dolphins, sea lions, harbor seals, and even pigeons are being taught artificial languages, complete with a primitive grammar or syntax. An African grey parrot named Alex mastered the correct use of more than one hundred spoken English words, using them in proper order to answer questions, make requests, do math, and offer friends and visitors spontaneous, meaningful comments until his untimely death at age 31 in 2007. One leading researcher, Ronald Schusterman, is convinced that “the components for language are present probably in all vertebrates, certainly in mammals and birds.” Arguing over semantics and syntax, psychologists and ethologists and linguists are still debating the definitions of the line. Louis Leakey remarked about Jane’s discovery of chimps’ use of tools that we must “change the definition of man, the definition of tool, or accept chimps as man.” Now some linguists have actually proposed, in the face of the ape language experiments, changing the definition of language to exclude the apes from a domain we had considered uniquely ours. The line separating man from the apes may well be defined less by human measurement than by the limits of Western imagination. It may be less like a boundary between land and water and more like the lines we draw on maps separating the domains of nations.

And long before the appearance of Archaeopteryx—whose scientific name means “first bird

The distance record holder was the black and white Arctic tern, with its 22,000-mile yearly journey between polar ice caps, but in fall 2006, a team of researchers published news of sooty shearwaters captured in their New Zealand breeding burrows and outfitted with satellite tracking devices. Flying in a giant figure eight over the Pacific basin, they journey 39,000 miles a year. (The birds can also dive beneath the ocean’s surface, searching for squid, to 225 feet.) In 2007, an even more astonishing record was established by a bar-tailed godwit. Satellite tracking allowed researchers to follow a female shorebird who flew 7,145 miles nonstop from Alaska to New Zealand. In nine days, she crossed the vast Pacific, without a single meal, rest, or drink.

Hi. I’m Bailey. Can you tell me your name?” “I’m Mac,” he responds. “I’m a Macaw,” he continues. “I’m a hottie,” he crows. O M G! Mac is now preening his head back and forth and ruffling his feathers. He’s stunning and he’s right, he is a hottie! “Who are you?” Mac asks. “My name is Bailey and I live in the apartment upstairs now. You are a very smart bird, Mac,” I answer and praise him. “I is amazing,” he replies mangling the English language a bit. I start chuckling because he’s just too much. I want to hug him and then run away with him under my arm. I’ve never even considered stealing something before but Mac, I would gladly steal. That thought is reconsidered when he continues talking. “Big bazoongas, Bailey.” “Uh, what did you say?” I ask, certain I misunderstood. “Big bazoongas!” he screeches. I think a parrot just embarrassed me! Oh my god

When Christopher Columbus made landfall in the Caribbean, he was convinced he had made his way around the world to India, in part because his first greeting was from islanders who swam to his ships carrying parrots to trade. The birds were then known to come only from the Far East.

As any parrot owner will tell you, pet birds can give serious bites. The nut-cracking beak of the African gray parrot, for example, can sever fingers. In 1998, the Labour Party’s John Prescott, deputy prime minister of the United Kingdom, was engaged in a publicity event for environmental issues when a captive macaw, clearly a Tory, fetched him a bruising bite on the finger.

Because it was part of old Gondwana and because it is insular and was isolated for tens of millions of years, New Zealand has a quirky evolutionary history. There seems to have been no mammalian stock from which to evolve on the Gondwanan fragment, and so, until the arrival of humans, there were no terrestrial mammals, nor were there any of the curious marsupials of nearby Australia—no wombats or koalas or kangaroos, no rodents or ruminants, no wild cats or dogs. The only mammals that could reach New Zealand were those that could swim (like seals) or fly (like bats), and even then there are questions about how the bats got there. Two of New Zealand’s three bat species are apparently descended from a South American bat, which, it is imagined, must have been blown across the Pacific in a giant prehistoric storm. Among New Zealand’s indigenous plants and animals are a number of curious relics, including a truly enormous conifer and a lizard-like creature that is the world’s only surviving representative of an order so ancient it predates many dinosaurs. But the really odd thing about New Zealand is what happened to the birds. In the absence of predators and competitors, birds evolved to fill all the major ecological niches, becoming the “ecological equivalent of giraffes, kangaroos, sheep, striped possums, long-beaked echidnas and tigers.” Many of these birds were flightless, and some were huge. The largest species of moa—a now extinct flightless giant related to the ostrich, the emu, and the rhea—stood nearly twelve feet tall and weighed more than five hundred pounds. The moa was an herbivore, but there were also predators among these prehistoric birds, including a giant eagle with claws like a panther’s. There were grass-eating parrots and flightless ducks and birds that grazed like sheep in alpine meadows, as well as a little wren-like bird that scampered about the underbrush like a mouse. None of these creatures were seen by the first Europeans to reach New Zealand, for two very simple reasons. The first is that many of them were already extinct. Although known to have survived long enough to coexist with humans, all twelve species of moa, the Haast’s eagle, two species of adzebills, and many others had vanished by the mid-seventeenth century, when Europeans arrived. The second is that, even if there had still been moas lumbering about the woods, the European discoverers of New Zealand would have missed them because they never actually set foot on shore.

A parrot,” he said, “is a tropical zygodactyl bird (order psittaciformes) that has a stout curved hooked bill, is often crested, brightly variegated, and an excellent mimic. In other words, Harold, a parrot is a little bird with a big mouth.

The cleverest line is delivered by Fibber as he reveals that the result of a triple cross involving a homing pigeon, a woodpecker, and a parrot would be a bird who could fly to the right place, knock on the door, and speak the message.