In 2010, a parrot that spoke with a British accent like its owner went missing. They reunited four years later, but the intervening time left a noticeable mark: Parrot had lost his British accent and was chirping in Spanish instead.
Parrots and many other birds are the only other animals that produce human speech. And some parrots do it almost instinctively. how it is possible?
Most wild parrots are highly social.
They use sound to coordinate mating and territorial displays and group movements. Some species have flocks that constantly divide and fuse, meaning that individual parrots must be able to communicate with many others.
Parrots use contact calls to communicate and stay in touch when others are out of sight. But how they use these calls depends on the species and their herd size.
Monk parrots, for example, live in large colonies and have individual communication calls that help them stand out. Yellow-naped Amazon parrots, on the other hand, forage in small groups that learn and share very similar communication calls.
This need for sophisticated mimicry may partly explain why yellow-naped amazons and some other parrots can imitate a wide range of sounds, including the human voice.
So, how does a parrot actually announce that "Polly wants a cracker"?
A person collects these sounds using their larynx,
the organ at the top of their windpipe. It consists of a ring of muscles and a movable membrane that controls the flow of air. He used his tongue and lips to mold sound into finely articulated words.
However, for a parrot, the sound will come from its syrinx, which is located below its windpipe. Many other birds have two vibrating membranes inside this organ.
But parrots like us only have one. As sounds leave the airways, parrots shape them using their tongues and beaks.
They can do this because they have particularly flexible, powerful tongues that help them scoop up seeds and nuts.
And while parrots have rigid beaks, their jaw joints are very flexible, giving them great control over how wide and how quickly they open their beaks.
Like other animals with learned vocalizations,
parrots have interconnected regions in their brains that allow them to hear, remember, modify, and produce complex sounds.
But while songbirds have only one song system in their brains, almost all parrots have an additional circuit. Scientists believe this may give them extra flexibility when it comes to learning the calls of their own species and ours.
With this special anatomy, parrots can bark, scream, curse, and recite factoids. An intrepid lost parrot managed to return home after repeating his full name and address to helpful strangers.
But these impressive abilities raise another question: Do parrots actually understand what they're saying?
When most captive parrots talk,
they are likely trying to form a social bond in their own absence. Many people may have an affinity for words and may be drawn to those that evoke certain responses—hence their profanity potential.
But, especially after training, parrots have been observed to say things and assign meanings to words in appropriate contexts—saying "goodnight" at the end of the day, asking for certain things, or counting things and to choose.
An extensively trained African gray parrot named Alex became the first non-human animal to question existence when asked what color he was.
Whether they're belting out Beyoncé,
headbanging to classic rock, or making fun of zoo-goers, parrots are constantly surprising us—as they have for thousands of years.
But our fascination with parrots has also made them vulnerable. Wild populations have declined dramatically, losing their habitat to deforestation in search of poachers and pet traders.
To truly understand parrots, we need to preserve and study them in the wild.
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