Pickles The Parrot Returns: My Continued Adventures with a Bird Brain

by Abbott, Georgi

  The only reason Pickles likes to be higher than us is for a better view and for ambushing reasons. Recently, I didn’t realize Neil had placed Pickles on his set of boings and ropes in the dining room and I walked directly under him. Pickles saw his opportunity and nailed me on top of the head with his beak, hard. I yelled out in pain but I doubt it was heard over his exuberant cries of victory. “AHA! SCORE! AHAAAA!” and then a bout of laughing, head bobbing, wing flapping and laughing. He lives for those moments but it’s got nothing to do with dominance and everything to do with personal entertainment, at my expense. This is playing, not dominating – as far as I’m concerned.

  Then there’s the advice about dominating your bird – showing him who is boss. A little research will quickly dispel this notion and indicate that practicing domination could have disastrous results. In my opinion and experience, Positive Reinforcement (PR) will produce a more desirable outcome, by far. When people tout dominance over a bird, dig a little further into their lives. What issues are they having, is their bird caged all the time, how much of their bird’s day is spent outside the cage, does their bird ever bite, does he pluck, how old is he/she, what species of parrot, at what age did they acquire the bird and from where? A snapshot of their lives might produce some insight as to whether or not you want to take advice from them.

  When we first got Pickles, if we tried to dominate him or force him to behave in any way, he dug his heels in and either got nasty or became distant and miserable. Mostly he made us pay in blood and we quickly realized this was a bird that could acquire a taste for it and soon studied up on PR.

  Some people say you should never look a parrot directly in the eyes. They say it produces a prey response, that human eyes resemble the eyes of a predator. Perhaps in some cases but not in Pickles. He demands you look him in the eye. He wants us to watch him when he’s acting silly and he wants us to look him in the eye when we’re speaking to him. At a very early age, he would sit on my shoulder while we were talking and gently tug on my lip until my head and eyes were turned toward him which was difficult because you go cross-eyed staring at him so close.

  No, dominating a parrot and taking away his free will is just not an option for us.

  Chapter 16

  That’s Just the Kind of Hair Pin I Am

  “Mama says I have a sick sense of humor. I need to find a thermometer to take its temperature and I will need some drugs and a hot water bottle. I must keep it warm with nice heavy blankets and feed it chicken soup. I'm very worried cuz I don't want it to die.”

  “All I want is someone to listen to me. Listen to me talk and especially listen to the wonderful sounds I can make. And I want them to listen close. Real close. So I can break their eardrums.”

  “I could have asked dad for his candy but I decided - if I’m gonna ask for anything, I'd steal it first and ask for forgiveness.”

  “Mom gave me a bowl of ice-cubes to play with and I tried to revive them all by placing them, one-by-one on the heater vents. When I looked later, they were all gone. I was hoping they'd come back to thank me but I guess they just went on with their lives.”

  ““If you're helping mommy bake a cake and you notice she didn't put any potato in it, make sure you grab one and throw it in when she's not looking. Later, she'll thank you.”

  “I got a hold of mom's notepad with all her important information on it. It was so much fun - ripping pages off, chewing them up, sharing with the dog. It was great, until mom caught me. "PICKLES!! I'm gonna wring your little neck!!!" she shouted. "Sorry" I said with a smile.”

  “If you're sitting on a perch and you fall off and you climb back on and you fall off again, I think you should sit in a chair instead of a bucking perch.”

  “Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be found. It's my job to find it. I don't know what it is but I’m pretty sure it's under the fridge.”

  “You know what it is that I hate the most? It's not brocolli and it's not bananas. No, wait. It IS brocolli. I got mixed up.”

  “If kids ever ask you how the Easter Bunny can lay chocolate eggs, I think a good answer would be "Those aren't chocolate eggs, my little friend.”

  “I didn't burn a flag or anything, but is it illegal to poke holes in it with your beak? It's just a hypthothetical question, in case I need to bury the hypothetical evidence.”

  “When I die and go to the Pearly Gates to be judged, I'm gonna snap all those pearls off the gates and play with them. I hope that doesn't influence their decision.”

  “Mom says I have all the physical indications of being a male but says just for fun, one day she will get me deinade. Well, that's nice of her but I’d rather have lemonade.”

  Pickles isn’t the perfect parrot, I don’t know if there’s any perfect parrot. He has his quirks, his tantrums, and now and then some behavioral problems pop up. It’s not always easy and its not always fun, but all in all he fits us well. I often wonder what other Greys are like, and if they have the same mannerisms. I know that each bird has individual personalities but I’ve never spent enough time around any other Grey to find out just how similar, or unsimilar, they actually are. What are some of the sounds they make? Of all the sounds Pickles makes, how many are natural to Greys and how many are things he’s picked up on his own? How much of his behavior is normal Grey behavior and how much is individual behavior? Regardless, I could spend hours just sitting and watching Pickles and wondering about his thought processes.

  As far as his basic behavior goes, he’s basically a good bird – a little demanding and nippy at times – but usually cheerful and personable. He can get angry at times but never holds a grudge for long. Usually, just ignoring him or asking if he wants to sing a song will snap him out of a bad mood. I’ve heard that some birds will get angry or snub a person who goes away for extended periods but Pickles is happy to have someone return after a long absence. He’ll pine in the meantime, or get cranky as hell if someone is gone too long and he’ll certainly take it out on the person left behind but after a day or two, he almost seems to forget there was ever another family member.

  I know that some people might be annoyed by a Grey but Pickles noises never bother me; except for his demanding little squawk, but mostly he makes happy sounds or words and this house wouldn’t be the same without his happy chatter. Funny how people find this annoying but they don’t notice the racket that small children make. Personally, I find children’s noises can be extremely annoying a lot of the time but then, I’m not used to children around me. I love kids, but only for brief periods.

  We don’t spend a lot of time reprimanding Pickles - he’s usually pretty good and knows his boundaries - but when he does something like trying to chew on the curtains while on the couch, we can’t help but tell him he’s a bad boy. What a little suck-up he is when this happens. He instantly lowers his head, baring his neck and asks for a scratch. The little stinker puts us in the position of rewarding him for going for the curtains but we can’t help but give him scratches when he acts so sweet.

  I love his headless bird imitation. He likes to tuck his head way back into his wings to sleep, making him look like a parrot with his head lopped off. When people used to come in the fly shop, they were never expecting to see a parrot and certainly not a headless one so it generated a lot of second takes and comments.

  Hanging upside down. My God, is there a parrot out there that doesn’t spend half his life hanging on ropes or perches? Sometimes Pickles just hangs. Nothing else – he’s not playing or swinging, he’s just hanging. I watched him hanging completely still one day for about five minutes and finally asked him “Doesn’t the blood rushing to your head bother you, Pickles?” “Uh huh” he answered. “Are you gonna hang there all day?” I asked. “Uh huh” he said. “I’d get a headache if I did that, Pickles.” He just hung quietly for a moment then finally said, “You’re a buggerbutt” and continued hanging and surveying the room upside down. A hanging bird is a happy bird.

  I hear that
a lot of Greys are afraid of insects. Pickles is okay with most but he will run from a spider. Fruit flies bug him, as do mosquitoes, and he will flap his wings and scream at them. But like his own downy feathers, the turbulence just seems to draw them closer. Houseflies and bees are chased down and one of these days, he’s going to get a bad sting out in the aviary.

  If he’s on the couch, he tries to catch any sort of fly that’s crawling on the window. He runs back and forth across the back of the couch with his beak wide open and tongue sticking out trying to snatch it up. He caught one once and I don’t know if he bit into it or swallowed it whole but the look on his face was priceless. I had never seen his eyes so wide. Regardless, he still chases them.

  Pickles loves beak rubs and tapping; his eyes glaze over and he’s in heaven. After a good rub or tap, he likes to place his beak in the bicycle rack, which means sticking his beak between two fingers of a loose fist. He’s been known to go to sleep that way.

  Pickles hates silence and there is no noise too loud for him. A sudden loud noise can startle him but even then, he laughs about it afterwards. The TV or stereo must be on at all times and ‘music’ is the word he uses for both, although he has been known to demand, “Want some racket!”

  I’ve seen a lot of pictures of Greys with one talon in their beak and Pickles does this too. Sometimes he kind of bites the tip of his nail and/or pulls it from his beak with a quick snap. People think this is cute but usually, with Pickles anyway, it’s an indication of stress. He only seems to do it when he’s irritated or a little scared. There are times he’s just cleaning his nails but that quick little snap is not cleaning. We’ve always called that, his ‘Minnie Me’ impression.

  It’s interesting watching his beak, tongue and throat when he talks or makes sounds and it’s pretty cool that they can make sounds with their mouth full. I like watching Pickles do his ‘mmmwwaa’ kissy sound and the way his bottom mandible vibrates with the effort as his tongue sticks out the side of his beak. And that tongue is just the cutest little rubbery thing! As a baby, he used to like it when I grabbed it gently and rolled it around between my fingers.

  I know that head shaking can be a sign of illness but Pickles shakes his head, kind of flicks it, when he’s happy. I’ve heard that they do this to adjust their vision. Of course, he also shakes his whole body and fluffs up when he’s happy – especially his tail. It does my heart good to see the happy tail shake. It’s like a dog wagging his tail.

  When Pickles was young, he used to spend a lot of time chicken scratching on the bottom of his cage - beak down to the ground, one leg stationary and the other scratching at the paper as if he was digging a hole. I’m sure glad he stopped because I got tired of replacing paper a few times a day.

  If he wants out of the cage before we get around to it, he will cling to the bars with his beak and one talon while waving the other. We taught him to wave when he was young and I always thought that’s what he was doing but I’m starting to think it’s a natural thing, like chicken scratching, and he’s trying to dig himself out from behind bars. It’s sweet to watch though.

  Then there’s the sleepy, content beak grinding which he does from under the cage covers at night. I like that sound, even though I know he’s probably sharpening it on my account. For a good bite.

  Pickles doesn’t seem to care much for mirrors. He definitely doesn’t think there’s another bird there and he couldn’t care less about staring at himself. No vanity there.

  When Pickles was young, he used to purr when he was cuddling and content but I haven’t noticed him to this in a long time. I’ve heard they also do a sort of purr sound when they’re annoyed but Pickles has seldom done this.

  I wonder if all Greys do the ‘snow shovel’. Pickles can’t walk across a flat surface without pushing his beak along in front of him. He’ll also do it on a wall – he’ll start at the bottom and run it as high as he can reach. He’s just got to bang everything with his beak too. Sometimes it’s a straight on bang, sometimes he flicks his head sideways to bang. He’ll do it so hard that I’m afraid he’ll crack his beak.

  There’s the little coos he does as he’s falling asleep. This is a very comforting sound to me.

  Then there’s the cluck cluck sound. This is supposed to be a happy sound but when Pickles does it, it usually accompanies a head bow - as if he wants a scratch – and then he lunges for my finger. I never scratch him if he gives me the cluck cluck. I guess it is a happy sound, he’s happy about getting a chance to bite.

  I also wonder if all Greys do that mechanical kind of noise when someone’s talking on the phone. It’s a garbled kind of sound and I guess that’s what the person on the other end of the line sounds like to him. It’s so cute.

  Pickles likes to share food. If we’re holding a banana for him or feeding him something from a spoon, he will dig in and then pull back and wait for us to have a share. He won’t continue eating unless we at least pretend we’re eating too.

  He has some sounds he makes and I’m not sure if it is learned or a throwback from the wild. He has a little ‘brrrrr’ sound that he does if he’s being cheeky, disappointed or sometimes when he’s just happy. He also does a perfect raspberry when he’s frustrated or disappointed. I don’t ever remember us making this sound; it’s not something we ever do.

  Then, of course, there’s the little screechy/squawky sound when he wants attention. I’ll bet all Greys make this sound and it is so very annoying and hard on the ears. This is the only sound that grates on me.

  I get a kick out of his cobra imitation. He stretches his body (long and sleek), waves his head and neck and then strikes like a snake. I made a new hanging toy for Pickles, a toy that was busy with all kinds of doodads and plastic eggs hanging from it. When I tried to clip it to his playstand, he came running like a spider, ready to attack either the toy or my fingers. He gets so excited when I hang things, and so impatient, that sometimes he'll nip me before I can finish and remove my hand. In my haste to get the heck out of there, I wasn't able to secure it properly but I figured it would do until I could get near it again.

  I placed the toy in such a spot on his playstand that he couldn't quite reach it. He ran from perch to perch trying to grab it, to no avail. Finally, he perched on the closest branch to the toy and attacked it like a cobra striking it's prey but each time he struck, he lost his balance and ended up doing a loop de loop all the way around the branch. A few loops later he decided that, as fun as this was, he needed to come up with a better plan. He climbed to the branch the toy was hanging on, stood above the toy and tried to raise it, talon over beak (like hand over hand), but it was too heavy. He resorted to standing above and yelling "Step up, eh! Ohhh, so bad! Step up eh?" until he thought about climbing down it.

  He wrapped his body and wings around the toy and proceeded to kill it but the toy got the best of him when it came unhinged while Pickles rode it to the ground, landing with the toy in a heap on top of him. He scrambled out from beneath, turned on a dime, dove into the toy pile, stomped on it and beat it with his wings to a bloody pulp.

  None of this was unusual for Pickles but what he did next, was a first. After he had calmed down, he gathered a couple of the smaller eggs and tried to get them beneath his body like any bird who was protecting his eggs. It was adorable but I had to wonder if he's actually a girl bird. He's never been DNA tested but he has all the visual/physical indications of a male Grey (tail feathers solid red beneath with no variable red edging, proper grey and black wing banding and the black lining and shape of the eye), then again, I'm sure males take on the egg protection behavior though too.

  Head bobs are always a happy sign. Pickles never does it otherwise. Sometimes he’ll do it if he’s not sure of something and he’ll start with a very slow bob and as he starts to understand whatever it is that confused him, it’s like a light bulb is going off and the more he thinks about it the faster and faster his head bobs until he’s bobbing like a mad man and all excited. I tend to do this
too. It’s funny how we pick up mannerisms and phrases our birds say. I will think about something and slowly nod my head until the idea completely forms in my head and the whole while, I’m nodding faster until I completely understand and then I’m nodding as fast as my head will go. I know it’s silly, but I can’t help it.

  So, that’s just a few things that Pickles does and I’m sure those behaviors aren’t unique to him.

  Chapter 17

  Who’s Training Who?

  “Did you know that parrots are so smart that in no time flat, they can train people to give them treats by performing tricks?”

  “I was minding my own business, chewing the curtains and mom told me to stop it. "How many times do I have to tell you that?!" she asked. I told her "476. And you're only at 92 so you have a long way to go but don't hurry on my account." ”

  “Instead of paying attention when moms are trying to teach us a trick or new words or something, why not just ignore her and go play with some toys. You won't learn anything, but you might not have learned anything anyway. That's my point.”

  “Mom said I’m very wise for my years. She says I’m only 8 but I argued and said I was older than that. She said the only way to prove it to me is to cut me in half and count the rings. I said, “WHAAAT?” Then I would be zero years old! I think I’ll keep the 8.”

  “Mom's teaching me how to count. She holds up the little bowl of pine nuts and as I eat each one, she counts 1-2-3-4-5 ... When she asks me before hand, how many would I like, I say 2 or 4. She asked my why I never say 1 or 3 and I said, "Cuz 1 & 3 are weird." She said, "You mean 1 & 3 are 'odd' numbers." I said "Same thing stupid." Besides, 2 & 4 make more snacks than 1 & 3.”