On Thu, 18 Dec 2008 05:44:22 +0000, Larry wrote:

Jan wrote in
:

After I'd finished laughing, I called a lady friend of mine who has a
Green Quaker. After I'd read your story to her, she was howling with
laughter. Hers is called Quito, and one day she called him Chico by
mistake, he replied "Quito" and went back to what he was doing. His
normal greeting when the cover is removed is "Hello", but if she goes
back into his room later he just says "What?", then if she bends down
out of his immediate sight to pick something up, she hears, "What are
you doing, doing, doing".
It's amazing to me that they get the phrases in the correct context.

Jan
"If you can't take a joke, you shouldn't have joined"



If a stranger just walks up and stares in at Roger-Roger, my Blue and
Gold Macaw, he will look them as straight in the eye as a parrot with
eyes on both sides of his head can and say, quite loudly, "UH-OH! NOW
WHAT??!", which usually has them eating out of his...his...scaly claws,
in no time.

If you get close to his water dish, he will dip and drink and say to
you, "Wanna drink?!", as many times as you will stupidly fake dipping
and drinking with him.

If you make a little popping sound by moving your tongue against your
upper lip, he will always, without fail, plaster himself against the
bars in front of you and say, "Gimme Kiss!", again as long as you will
stupidly assent to his demands for attention.

Zeke is more adventurous than the macaw, but isn't nearly as friendly to
strangers. He puffs his feathers all up to look as big as possible and
struts around in that "You put that finger in here and I'll bit the
whole end of it off!" offensive-looking display of red tail feathers
fanned all out....like he did for the little sparrow. He doesn't really
like anyone but me until he gets a lot of exposure to them. He'll
defend me to the death if he thinks you're going to touch me and he's
"loose".

Quakers.......NOISY! another NOISY conure!

Has your friend seen the flocks of Quakers that have taken over New York
City?

http://www.brooklynparrots.com/

I don't think she knows about the Brooklyn parrots, I'll show her the
page when she next comes over. She would however disagree with you
about Quakers being noisy, especially hers, true if it's startled,
then it lets rip, but normally it's quite quiet. She has had a vets
opinion that Quakers are the "Napoleons" of the bird world, and that
they are the pit-bulls of the bird world.g
So far, Quito seems to be building an extensive vocabulary and using
it in the correct manner, also working on being head honcho. He also
gets into the kissy kissy thing.
There's a book out, I can't remember the title but I believe it
contains the name "Alex" about a lady who raised and trained, I
believe a Quaker to pick shapes and colours, it also had a vocabulary
of about 130 words.

Jan
"If you can't take a joke, you shouldn't have joined"