A Gardeners Forum Forums Gardening Reference Gardening in 2007 A GREAT Bird Story!

Hi everyone ~

This is a link that will take you to a wonderful story (with pictures) of a rescued Cockatiel in Queensland and how she got a mate and had babies.

It is about four pages long with the big pictures, but is well worth taking a look at when you have a few minutes.

Queensland Bird Story


Merme

Oh, Merme!
I loved it!!! Thank you!

Merme,

That is a great story! Lots of great picture. It's good to see smart bird stories because the more I feed birds in the back yard the more I realize where the expression bird brain comes from.. they ain't real bright!

I can't imagine having such cool birds in my backyard.

I hope Lola doesn't read that!

(...sometimes I think she is smarter than me!)

Parrots have near HUMAN intelligence as do Corvids (Crows, Jays, Magpies. etc.) All of these birds have actual LANGUAGES and the ability to learn and use other languages, intelligently.

Lola freaks me out sometimes...the way she can carry on a conversation with me. And this morning she was talking to Whiskey Man (my crow) for about 45 minutes...i have no idea what they were talking about, but they were definitely conversing...back and forth.
(...now you all are going to start calling me the crazy bird lady, like my neighbors do!)

according to Google, you've been called crazy bird lady at least 27 times on the forum. Normally, noone calls you that until you're not around, then we quickly delete it when you show back up again.
I don't understand how we managed to let those 27 instances slip by unnoticed...

I have been fascinated by Crow language since I was a little boy. I lived where there were lots of Crows and noticed early on that they were using the EXACT same phrasing and tones for each situation they encountered, and it hit me one day: THEY ARE TALKING AND USING THEIR ON LANGUAGE!!! My friend had a pet Crow named ROHO who would perch on top of their house. When someone walked close to their house he would call out, "Ro-HO! Ro-HO!" If the person did not yell back the correct response, Roho would fly at them, beating them, pecking them, and clawing them, to protect my friend and his family. The correct response was to yell, "Ro-HO!" back at the Crow to tell him you were a friend and knew who he was. When you gave the correct response he would fly down and land on your shoulder and whisper sweet, garbled, Crow phrases in your ear and ride on your shoulder into the house. By knowing the, "Password" you could change him from a vicious killer to a pussycat in seconds. I owned Roho's sister from the same nest. Her name was Jezebel. She was a pussycat all the time and loved shiny objects. I would feed her canned Ken-L-Ration dogfood, which she loved. She too would talk to me. One day while walking through the neighborhood a flock of wild Crows flew by overhead and called to her she called back and took off from my arm and flew to them. They landed in the trees and she flew back to me landed on my shoulder and whispered sweet Crow phrases in my ear, caressed me fondly with her bill and then flew back to the other Crows. Then they all flew away together and I never saw her again. She instinctively and instantly knew and used the wild Crow language.

Thorny...I talk to my crow every morning when I put his breakfast out. My neighbor threatened to video tape the exchange of "words" and make a lot of money on America's Funniest Videos.


Crazy Bird Lady <------------ #28

Merme,
That is soooooooo cool..
I know they'll get a kick out of it...

**I had a crow here one summer, and I talked back to it, thought it was soooo neat *and such a pretty bird* but the following late spring/early summer, I had a flock of crows living in my back yard.. and I was NOT happy with them..
They were raiding just about every other birds' nests' around here for the babies.. and eating them in my assorted water/birdbaths I had along the property for birds and butterflies.. *or just rain water I'd collect* they'd disect those poor babies, pull apart their parts, and stuff dripping down the sides of the bird baths,
and guts and assorted parts in the water or flies if I didn't actually catch them in the water thing and the flies would accumilate over the course of the day, until I came acrossed it..

I ended up dumping every bit of water, nothing
to drink for anyone
I will be watchin' them this coming season... :p

Oh Merme, I loved the Queensland Bird Story!!

After reading everything Cindy says about her and lola it has made me wish I could raise a baby bird from an egg!! It's just too cool!!

Wonderful story and beautiful pictures, Merme! Thanks for posting the link....

Weezie ~ I hope you had the chance to show this to your boys. I finally was able to show it to Maxi and he so enjoyed the story also!

I just think it is awesome to see that the bird rescue people cared so much and how wondrous the birds behaviors really are.

Merme

What an amazing bird story - It should get more looksees. They could make a hallmark movie about that remarkable pair.

Merme, Thank you so much for posting it -- my whole family really enjoyed it.