On Mon, 15 Dec 2008 21:06:28 +0000, Larry wrote:

I've recovered enough to type this, I think, and the noise has died down
a little, but they're still pretty spooked.....

I have two parrots, a Yellow Nape Amazon named "Zeke" and a Blue and
Gold Macaw I raised from a 6-day-old chick named "Roger-Roger" (he
picked the name up listening to the 2-meter ham repeater long ago).
They're both pretty vocal during periods of light, squawking at the
squirrels climbing down the oak tree next to their window, etc., warning
of the "squirrel invasion" that happens every morning, right after I put
out the old food out of their cages for the wild animals in the
neighborhood who love it.

It's a beautiful day in Charleston, a beautiful week. Global Warming?
It's 73 on the river at 4PM and I've had the place opened up since I got
home at noon. It's going to be 77F Wednesday! Global Warming? BRING
IT ON!...

So, I'm sitting here sipping a Boddington's minding my own business and
this little sparrow hops up from the steps to the door sill and looks
inside. I froze to see what he would do if left to his own curiosity.
He hopped inside and started hopping around me. The sounds of his
little claws clicking on the tile were the only sounds outside the fans
in the computers. He must have smelled BIRD SEED coming from the parrot
room so off he FLEW through the house to located it. The very instant
he flew into the parrot room, all hell broke loose! The Macaw has the
capability of sounding like one of those public warning horns at a
Nuclear Power Plant, if he's a mind to. The warning horn must have been
heard for blocks! It was deafening! The Yellow Nape was making this
awful growling sound like a lion startled mixed in with his own warning
calls to the Amazon flock. If a bomb went off I wouldn't have heard it.

Of course, this terrified the poor little sparrow into flight, its best
defense, but he/she was too terrified to remember where he/she came in
so the sparrow made it worse by flying around the parrot room a few laps
before ducking out the door into the computer room and spying the open
door with the sun pouring in....making a very hasty exit.

The parrot alarms are self-resetting, but only after the adrenaline rush
is over. I was laughing so hard my stomach has a cramp. The warning
horns eventually died down into several run throughs of their entire
English vocabulary of funny words and phrases mixed with learned cursing
I've caused over the years when my "noise limit" has been exceeded
trying to shut them up. They're still talking to each other and the
Macaw keeps saying, "Way, Way Too Much NOISE!", over and over. Zeke
keeps repeating "NOW WHAT?!" in a loud voice.

They are no longer bored and falling asleep on one foot for their
afternoon nap.....There won't be any nap today....(c;]

..................you had to be here........(c;]

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"