Parrot on America's Got Talent

[Malcolm's Dad]

Malcolm's brother Oscar is an Amazon parrot. He talks in clear plain English. On AGT there was an act with an Amazon parrot. Another plain English talking bird that sings too.

 

The video starts with a lot of the AGT stars and the participants. Then a few minutes in is the spot with the talking parrot.

 

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x20mzio_the-birdman-48-america-s-got-talent-2014-auditions_fun?start=7

 

Parrots are fun to live with. At times they will make you think you are really talking to another human. Cairns are good at making you think they are human too. A Cairn may not speak in plain English. After living with them for a while you begin to understand what they are saying in their own Cairn language.

[Autumn & Lola]

Wow, how annoying! (MEL B, not the parrot! LOL!)

 

The parrot was wonderful and very entertaining. I bet it is a lot of fun living with a talking parrot and a Cairn. Hi-jinx every day!

[pkcrossley]

the strange thing is that so little is understood about bird intelligence. the people i know who have talking birds say it is not all just rote performance. there is some kind of elementary language understanding behind it, maybe quite a lot. their brains are so microscopic and don't conform to any of the assumptions we have about brain physiology. but they do amazing things --navigation, communication among themselves, training. they are amazing. makes you wonder what their ancestors the dinosaurs were really like. 

[Malcolm's Dad]

They do understand language. I would say "I want food" when I was placing his food cup in the cage or offering him a treat. You have to repeat a phrase often to get them to repeat. I was teaching him to repeat that phrase when I gave him food so he would say "I want food" when I held something in front of him. Turns out he says that when he sees anyone with food whether they are offering it to him or not. He doesn't know they are English words. He just knows if he makes that combination of sounds someone will give him food. He really does know what he is saying.

He called my dad "Grandpa". He knew if he said "Grandpa" my dad would get him anything he wanted. Today if I don't get him something fast enough he will say "Grandpa". Its like if you aren't going to do it I'll get "Grandpa" to do it instead.