Parrot Pranks
Aug 19th 2008Rural WriterAfrican Gray Parrot
Parrots are entertaining and lovable. They have to be or you’d wring their necks when once again you discover something they chewed up they weren’t supposed to have. African Grays are amazingly destructive little terrors with that 5-year-old intelligence and 2-year old’s emotional level. It’s like having an extra smart tot around perpetually in the Terrible Two’s.
Take the other evening for instance, when I was busy working on my desktop computer in the office while The Farmer was watching a movie on tv. All of a sudden I heard him exclaim, “Where did you come from?”
When I went to investigate, it seems my parrot went walkabout and had walked from one side of the house to the other, crept across the floor of the den, then crawled up the side of his recliner without him ever knowing she was anywhere close.
The Farmer and The Parrot
I snapped this picture before I returned the parrot to her cage. She and the Farmer have an ongoing love-to-hate-ya relationship, so I felt it best to separate them. (You notice he has his arm put down away from the bird!) 
Then just yesterday, at the same time I was pulling my hair out over a messed up blog, I was bombing our basement. Got to take my frustrations out somehow, right?
Well, actually, we’ve had some trouble with little spiders in the Cave Geeks space. We tried glue traps and spraying, but that didn’t have much effect. I figured a bug bomb ought to do the trick, and would not only get rid of spiders, but any other creepy crawlies that found their way in. So when the guys left for work Monday morning, I got bombed. Oh wait, that’s not quite right…
Okay, so what I really did was set off the bug bomb in the basement. Now that space is right under the parrot’s cage, with a couple of vents nearby. Since birds are sensitive to air pollutants (think miner’s and their canaries), I figured I’d better move her outside for the duration.
I set her travel cage on a table on the back porch, carried her out there and locked her up.
There’s a dog door to the porch, and Toby the Wonder Dog comes and goes as he pleases. He decided to come up on the porch and investigate. The parrot took exception to this.
Just in case you didn’t realize it, that is NOT the dog growling in the first half of that video. That is the PARROT growling at the dog, then saying, “What?” a couple of times.
How’s that for a turnaround? I’d never heard her do that, and have no idea where she learned it or how she knew to growl at the dog…
But it sure was funny!
6 Comments »
ceeceeon 20 Aug 2008 at 9:02 am 1I’ve that African Greys are among the smartest parrots that we’ve domesticated. Yours is a riot! Sneaky little boy.
Rural Writeron 20 Aug 2008 at 10:50 am 2Yes, they’re supposed to be TOP DOG of parrots when it comes to smart. See, she even GROWLS like she’s top dog!
And yes, she can be very, VERY sneaky. Sometimes when I’m working in the office I have no idea she got down off her cage until I hear this, “Hello! hello!” I guess she gets bored and/or lonesome when she’s by herself.
frugalmomon 20 Aug 2008 at 10:56 am 3I had no idea that parrots were sneaky. That whole dog growling thing was funny tho and then her saying what afterward, like, What? What did I do?!
Farmgirl_dkon 20 Aug 2008 at 12:14 pm 4Very cute…she’s a clever one, isn’t she? Clearly, she is the one that (thinks she) rules the roost at your house…keeping everybody on their toes. I laughed that she sought out the Farmer, even though he physically moves away from her when she comes around. Is that a power trip on her part or a subconscious desire to get a bit of lovin’ from him?
Kimmyon 20 Aug 2008 at 2:29 pm 5Oh that too funny! I had no idea they were that sneaky either. She is definitely a character!
Amyon 22 Aug 2008 at 12:21 pm 6Oh that is funny! Parrots are wonderful but a lifelong commitment to a two year old, as you said. It takes a special person to keep a parrot because of the time investment. I had parakeets when I was a kid and had fun teaching them to say things.