Pickles The Parrot: A Humorous Look At Life With An African Grey

by Abbott, Georgi

  We often move Pickles from room to room for different scenery or to be with us. Mom sees us doing this all the time, but we never thought to tell her not to do it herself because she’s not used to handling him and doesn’t know when he might bite…

  “Pickles is in the dog house. He bit me. I took him for a walk to the dining room where he has a smaller cage and he can sit on top of it and watch the “baby butts”, as he calls small birds such as juncos, chickadees etc. When I went to take him back, he bit me so I waited awhile and then tried to entice him with his pine nuts. When I told him to ‘step up’ onto my hand, he bit me and grabbed the bowl of pine nuts, which I then dropped. Now pine nuts are everywhere so I cleaned as many as I could out of the cage without him attacking me again, and swept most of them off the floor. He ate what he could find in crevasses and then proceeded to climb down to the floor for the few he could see there. I stopped that right away by yelling, “You get back up!” He scuttled up to the top of the cage and proceeded to fight with everything he could find, as well as attacking a piece of wood attached to the cage. Now that I have left the room, he is happily whistling and chatting away. I just heard some banging on the other side of the wall from where I am so went to see what’s up and there’s Pickles sitting calmly on the cage with his talon in the corner of his mouth like ‘Mini Me’. Back to the computer and he’s now whistling nonchalantly and going through every birdcall, dog bark, whistle, sneeze, sniff and phone rings and beeps. Guess he’s going to be staying in there for a while. So, that’s how Pickles is.”

  Okay, now there’s blood. At least she has the presence of mind to leave the room. That’s how we deal with temper tantrums. But everything continues to go downhill…

  “So, at about 5:30pm, Pickles decided he would rather have snacks and supper than stay in the dining room all alone until Tuesday. The little brat. Every time I asked him if he wanted to step up, he attacked me and growled and glared at me and called me names like Rat..$%!#!$#. Now he’s whistling on top of his cage in the living room…dum da dum dee dee, like nothing ever happened. Aaaaaaaaaaaaaghhhhhhhh.”

  He can be fierce. Later that night…

  “Finally,…the little brat has gone to bed…in his cage…in the living room…in his tent. He’s been pretty pleased with himself all day. I was ready to threaten him with a cooking pot but he’d have just given me the raspberry, so what’s the use. The last half hour he’s been happily whistling away, sitting on his cage door after asking for a grape and then throwing it at me. If he were female, I’d say he had pms. Tomorrow’s another day…whewwwww. You can just commit me when you come back.

  Apparently, Pickles had stayed in the dining room for 6 hours. Mom said he was bored to tears with no food or water. She put her big fuzzy housecoat on and pulled the sleeves down over her hands and by then he really wanted to go home so he didn’t make much of a fuss.

  We felt pretty bad when we got back. Mom told us that it had been quite upsetting to her when Pickles wouldn’t leave the dining room. All day long, she worried that he would be hungry for his supper and thirsty for water. She didn’t realize we had bowl set-ups on that cage to feed him. She was convinced that she’d never get him back home and it scared her. He’s had a taste of her blood and she didn’t want to go near him again. She had been in tears that night.

  If Pickles outlives us, we may never have another vacation again.

  Chapter 8

  Pickles at Eight Years of Age

  I won’t say living with Pickles has been easy, or that it’s always fun. He demands a lot of attention and while he can sometimes be amusing when he gets in those moods, it can be exhausting trying to please him and keep him happy. We supply him with tons of toys and foraging opportunities, we spend a lot of time with him, he’s free to come and go from his cage, he gets plenty of food and snacks and yet he will act like a bored child who you’re at a loss to entertain. For all my complaining about him, he can be even more critical of us. Sometimes I pray his vocabulary doesn’t increase because I’m afraid of the verbal abuse!

  We are constantly searching our minds for new and creative ideas or items that will entertain Pickles—constantly. It’s very trying but worth the effort and very rewarding to us when we succeed in anything that occupies his time and makes him happy. Our lives revolve around Pickles—it has to. A busy bird is a happy bird. I make most of his toys and in fact, it takes one small room in our house to store all his extra toys, toy parts, play stands, perch material and all his paraphernalia. His stuff occupies almost 1/2 our living room and ¼ of our dining room. Everything in the house had to be bird proofed to keep him safe and to keep him from destroying our precious belongings. He’s not a particularly destructive bird but we need to err on the side of caution. Years ago, he started reprimanding himself for chewing on things he shouldn’t. If he reaches for taboo items, he stops himself by saying “No! Stop it! Stop being a brat!” and when he obeys himself, he rewards himself with “Good boy. Want a scratch?”

  Boredom can be devastating for a bird. A parrot that isn’t engaging his mind, might engage in feather plucking instead. Many other things can cause plucking in a bird too and we had a bit of a scare recently when Pickles started plucking the feathers on his chest and legs. Not knowing the cause, we began to search for it by changing his diet, looking for objects in the room that might be stressing him, changing temperatures, poop inspection but we couldn’t seem to find the cause. I had just decided to take him to the avian vet, which would mean a long drive and an overnight stay, when I noticed some interaction between him and Neil. Neil has a laptop and usually uses it in the dining room where he sets Pickles for company. From my computer, in a room down the hall, I can listen to the both of them talking and one day I heard Pickles doing his annoying little squeak for attention. Neil had been absorbed in something on the computer and was absentmindedly trying to appease Pickles so every time Pickles squeaked, Neil responded. After listening to this for quite some time, aware that it was getting worse, I walked in and warned Neil about what was happening. Of course, he hadn’t been aware of what he was doing but agreed that he had to stop it.

  I started to watch them closer. Neil was getting better at ignoring Pickles by not responding to his squeaks but now he was making the mistake of leaving the computer to give Pickles a snack or take him for a walk when he got cranky. I talked to him about that too but he said he didn’t agree, that he always waited until Pickles was quiet for a few moments before he gave him attention. I watched and waited as the situation grew worse and then I noticed something else. Neil had been off work all winter with his seasonal job but now it was spring and he went back to work at the Park. I’m now working from home and alone with Pickles all day. Pickles is fine, he rarely squawks for attention and his feathers are growing back in the tiny little bald spots. They grow in but a couple of days later they’re gone again. This happens over and over, and again I realize that the few hours Neil is home while Pickles is awake, he’s giving Pickles attention at the wrong time and Pickles is in constant demand of attention. I mention it again to Neil and after some discussion we realize Neil had been over-compensating out of guilt for not being around as much. As soon as we remedied the situation, Pickles stopped plucking completely. Since then, there have been a couple of times where Pickles will start to pluck again but we immediately realize that we’ve been slacking off and enabling him. Neil is the worst but I’ve been guilty of it too and it usually takes the other person to notice. At least we discovered the cause and thank God it’s not a health issue.

  Pickles is getting happier and happier about us leaving the room he is in. We’re developing a bit of a complex about it and feeling a little snubbed but it’s working to our advantage. Pickles has make it a common practice to turn his back on us out of disdain for our behavior but now he’s snapping “Go bye-bye” and pointedly facing the other way. So now, when he gets cranky, it’s easy to make him happy by telling him bye-bye and finding something else to do. The
happy, loud animations are a sure indication that he prefers his own company to ours.

  Most of the time, he’s happy to entertain himself. He can talk to himself for hours and shows his amusement with head bobs and chuckles. He likes to practice his sounds and will pick up any new ones he hears in seconds. He doesn’t practice his words by mumbling to himself, as many African Greys do, he just spits them out when you least expect it. He’s very good at stringing whole sentences together and the longest sentence he has spoken contained 16 words, although I can’t recall what he said at the time. An example of a typical shorter sentence would be “Don’t you wanna eat some potato supper with your beak?” or “Let’s go party in the aviary and listen to some music” or “Step up and let’s go for a walk and sit on the freezer”. He is perfectly capable of inserting different words into a sentence to indicate what he wants, such as telling us what he wants to eat with his beak or going for a walk to get a snack instead of going to the freezer. What he hasn’t grasped yet, is that eating with ‘your’ beak isn’t the same as eating with ‘my’ beak but then; we haven’t really explained that to him.

  At last count, 3 or 4 years ago, Pickles had about 100 words in his vocabulary. As he picks up new words, he will drop others. Sometimes he will drop words or phrases for months or years then suddenly decide to use them again, with a vengeance. I don’t know why some words or phrases are more desirable to him than others, or why there are some things he refuses to say at all. There are many words he understands but does not repeat. If you mention a walnut he goes nuts in anticipation but he has never spoken the word.

  I think the only consonant he has trouble with is ‘v’ but he does say ‘very’. I should actually listen closer to see if he is substituting. I have a younger brother who stuttered in his early years and he would substitute consonants that he had trouble pronouncing but he’d talk so quickly that it wasn’t always noticeable. In the beginning, Pickles had a bit of a problem saying anything with an ‘s’ without whistling but now it only sounds like a lisp. And only when the ‘s’ is at the end of a sentence, not at the beginning.

  Neil and I have found that we don’t always hear Pickles’ new words and phrases, maybe because we don’t pay enough attention or maybe because we just expect certain words to come out of his mouth. Often people will laugh about something he just said and repeat it to us and we tell them that Pickles doesn’t say that particular work or phrase, that they just imagined it. But lo and behold, at some point later, we actually hear it. It was like that whenever Neil worked out of town and I was home alone with Pickles. Neil would come home and comment on new words Pickles had picked up, words I hadn’t even noticed.

  I’ll digress for a moment about Pickles’ whistling. As I mentioned, I don’t whistle very well and sometimes I can’t hit certain notes in a whistling song. Pickles seems to have a natural talent and an ear for music because he will learn a song that I whistle and actually insert the proper notes! I have never heard him sing off key.

  I won’t lie to you and tell you that Pickles talks coherently every day, all day long and entertains us non-stop. I started writing the PickleStories for Good Bird Magazine a few years ago and sometimes I’m worried that I won’t have a story for the deadline. He does amusing things everyday but it’s not always things I can put into words. Also, I prefer the stories to be somewhat of a cognitive nature and sometimes he just babbles like a toddler who’s learning and practicing words. He’s extremely articulate when it comes to getting what he wants and he’s good at initiating conversations and following through but only when it suits him.

  I wouldn’t say Pickles is smarter than other parrots and I think the only reason he’s so vocal is because he’s so demanding. It’s important for him that everybody is at his beck and call so it’s to his advantage to speak well. Words work for him. Communication is important to him whereas some parrots prefer physical contact, playing or cuddling with their people or just playing on their own. Like people, all birds are individual and Pickles just happens to be a very vocally social bird with tyrannical tendencies. I mean, what is a King without a voice?!

  Every PickleStory I have written has been initiated by Pickles, rather than acting on cue. We have resisted training him any tricks and the only way he increases his vocabulary is through normal conversation with him, or between Neil and I. Not to say we will never teach him tricks because it would be great interaction and a good way to keep his mind occupied.

  It can be difficult to write PickleStories in the sense that I can’t describe his inflections, his tones. He talks in several voices—mine, Neil’s, his own and he has his happy, sad, angry, demanding voice and his very, very sweet voice. What’s hard to put into words are all his antics and behavior. Most of his shenanigans don’t get written about but I keep a rough diary of almost everything he does.

  He knows how to ask for different food items or things he wants to do, such as going for a walk, going outside to the aviary, listening to music or for us to sing a song. When he asks for music, it must be his kind of music otherwise he gives you the buzzer. He knows what’s scary to him and tells us with both words and actions. He only says “Good morning” in the morning and only asks for his lights off at night. At 5:00pm, on the dot, he asks for his supper. If he’s somewhere he doesn’t want to be, he asks to go home.

  He seems to understand “Be right back”. If we say it when we’re leaving, it makes him happy however, if we say, “Bye-bye, be gone long time” he will often give us a little whine of disappointment—especially if it involves Daddy. If Neil’s not home, Pickles will ask, “Daddy’s home?” and if I respond, “He’ll be right back” Pickles shows his happiness with hoots and whistles. But if I say “Daddy be gone long time” he will repeat as a question, “Gone long time?” then fluff up and pout. Pickles will often turn his back on us and scamper away saying “Bye-bye, be right back” but he never tells us “Bye-bye, be gone long time”. Is it because he knows he’s not going to be gone for long? Hard to say.

  It’s only when he’s ready for bed that he’ll tell us to turn his light off but he’ll also use the same words a few minutes later when he’s ready to be covered for the night. He might not know the difference but he’s clever enough to know that both make it dark for him. He doesn’t know the difference between pop and juice but he knows it’s not water (he’s not allowed pop). He doesn’t know the difference between pudding and jello, he thinks anything served to him on a spoon is pudding but if you serve him mashed potato on a spoon he will say “mmmmm, potato”. He loves peas but if he asks for a bean and you hand him a pea pod, he’ll through it in your face. If his water dish is soiled with food scraps, he’ll ask for fresh water and if you don’t give him fresh water with each meal, he will politely ask for it before he dines.

  Pickles knows the difference between a question and a statement. Lately, he’s added the “I” to things like “wanna snack” or “wanna go for a walk” but usually it’s the later. When he’s demanding something he’ll say, “wanna snack” but if we’re busy and he’s not sure if we’ll give him what he wants, he’ll politely ask “Wanna snack?” Same words but shows the difference between ‘Can I?” and “I want.”

  One of the PickleStories I wrote for Good Bird Magazine makes a good example for both Pickles’ understanding of teasing and what is scary. This is what I wrote…

  Pickles has this thing he likes to do—pretending to fall over. He picks the thinnest branch on his play stand so that he can wrap his talons around it loosely, like little hoops, which enables him to fall upside down then flap his wings to get back up. Sometimes he just hoops his talons and flies round and round the branch. Today he is particularly animated about it.

  A blood-curdling scream pierces the air and wild wing flapping sends dust and downy white feathers swirling through the room. Our living room must look like a snow globe from the street. Pickles sees he now has my attention.

  “Oh no!” he exclaims. His eyes are wide and have the
look of fear as he begins to fall backwards, in slow motion. He pretends to be trying to fight gravity but to no avail. He falls, clinging to the branch, upside down. “That’s scary,” he informs me.

  “Yeah, right” I say, and go back to reading my book as he flaps his way back to the top of the perch.

  Suddenly he’s screaming “No, no, no, no, no!” and I look up just as he’s falling backwards again. He hangs there, looking at me. “Ooops” he says.

  Once again, he flaps to right himself on the perch then immediately goes “Ack!” and falls again. “Upside down bird” he says, “Scary.”

  “Pickles…” I start to say, but he interrupts with “Get back up!”

  “That’s just what I was going to say—get back up and stop being a little faker,” I told him.

  As he flapped to get back up, he flapped all the way around the branch and ended up upside down again. Flapped again, this time doing several laps around the branch but at some point he lost his grip—and it happened as he was in the upside down position, resulting in a upside down, flying bird smacking head first into the wall behind, landing in a crumpled heap on the floor.

  I leapt to his rescue; sure that he must have hurt himself. By the time I got there, he was upright, beady eyes looking up at me, one talon in the air, asking to ‘Step up”.

  As I picked him up, he quietly informed me “That’s scary.”

  “I believe you this time Pickles”.

  Clearly, he was teasing me. He was pretending to fall over, he was pretending it was scary and in the end, it was scary which he indicated in an entirely different way than when he was teasing earlier. I send my stories out to friends through email and they send them on to friends of theirs. A friend of a friend (Eliza Firth) obviously ‘got’ it and wrote, “Okay, there are other stories that are funnier, and somewhere his smart-ass remarks are more clever, but this is the best demonstration I’ve ever heard of that he understands language in a really subtle and nuanced way. That’s scary.”