We have friends who had an African Grey, and that bird had an insane range of sounds and phrases, etc that she would mimic. Not just repeating words and phrases but impersonating the voice of whomever would say it to her. Like the AOL “You’ve got mail” voice when she’d hear the modem sounds. If we were smoking weed, the bird was having a coughing fit and dinging a pipe on an ashtray. If we were laughing and talking, the bird was over there laughing it’s ass off too. From calling the dogs, to having one-sided phone conversations, to setting off a car alarm whenever anyone would leave, her repertoire was seemingly endless. And then there was the smoke alarm. She liked to pull that one out if she wanted attention, and it would split your eardrums…
its always funny to me that a perfect imitation of a sound, is often more eerie than someone simply repeating it.
To my understanding, birds don’t understand english, they understand noises, and have the capability to replicate a lot of noises. So what happens is they often just replicate words and phrases, as if it was a noise. But due to human psychology, that shit weirds us out more than you would think it should.
My mom had an African grey that would bark like the dog then yell at itself for barking.
It also liked to beep like the answering machine.
We have friends who had an African Grey, and that bird had an insane range of sounds and phrases, etc that she would mimic. Not just repeating words and phrases but impersonating the voice of whomever would say it to her. Like the AOL “You’ve got mail” voice when she’d hear the modem sounds. If we were smoking weed, the bird was having a coughing fit and dinging a pipe on an ashtray. If we were laughing and talking, the bird was over there laughing it’s ass off too. From calling the dogs, to having one-sided phone conversations, to setting off a car alarm whenever anyone would leave, her repertoire was seemingly endless. And then there was the smoke alarm. She liked to pull that one out if she wanted attention, and it would split your eardrums…
its always funny to me that a perfect imitation of a sound, is often more eerie than someone simply repeating it.
To my understanding, birds don’t understand english, they understand noises, and have the capability to replicate a lot of noises. So what happens is they often just replicate words and phrases, as if it was a noise. But due to human psychology, that shit weirds us out more than you would think it should.