Tuesday, March 1, 2011

Noisy Birds

It’s been a while since I blogged, and even longer since I wrote anything about my three pet birds “Precious” the Quaker parakeet (Monk Parakeet) from South America, “Sek-khia” the Indian Ringneck from, um, India, and “Frank-Frank” the Ducorps Cockatoo from the Solomon Islands. The clip below captures a moment of their lively speech earlier today (some of the background noise filtered out). All three birds contributed, although Precious usually has less to say:

Thankfully one set of neighbors is only home at night…

Which of the following phrases can you detect in the above recording?

1. Argh! A roach! A! U Kā-Choa̍h! 阿!有蟑螂! (In Taiwanese)

2. How are you? Nǐ hǎo!你好! (In Mandarin Chinese)

3. You are so cute! Nǐ hǎo kěài! 你好可愛 (this phrase taught by previous owner- Mandarin Chinese)

4. Don’t sleep! Mài khùn 不要睡 (Taiwanese)

5. “Precious” BǎoBeì 寶貝 (Mandarin)

6. I love you! (English)

7. Hello! (English)

Unfortunately, due to the annoying frequency of the first phrase above, I probably cannot ask my friends at the restaurant to take care of my birds next time I am away from home. Wish I had thought of that before I taught “Frank-Frank!” to say it!

Speaking of “Frank-Frank”  the Cockatoo, here are some basic tricks (shake hands, turn around, wave goodbye) I taught him  recently. He learned each one in about 10 minutes: