Understanding Your Bird

Birds make excellent pets, being both intelligent and responsive. The long-standing trend for parrots as companion birds is not just because of their power of mimicry, nor their coloration. Other birds can be taught to talk, and the popular African Gary Parrot has relatively dull plumage. It is because these birds interact so well with humans that their popularity has endured for centuries.

Avian Intelligence

Documented studies of the intelligence level of birds are limited, although experiments have been carried out to investigate their ability to count. The birds were shown a card that featured a number of spots, and had to relate this figure to a similarly marked food bowl. The numbers and patterns varied, so the birds did not simply identify with one set only. The outcome of this study showed that, in this fashion, the birds could master counting up to the number seven.

The Case Of Alex

Investigations into a parrot's ability to reason and respond in words hae been carried out by Irene Pepperberg at Purdue University in lafayette, Indiana. She chose a young African Gray Parrot christened Alex, from a pet store in Chicago. The bird was just over a year old at this stage, and did not speak at all. Pepperberg began her training of Alex using a method that had proved successful for a previous worker. She spoke to another staff member, using the words and phrases she wanted Alex to learn. In the wild, parrots mimic the calls of older birds, and some regional differences have been determined by field workers in species that range over a wide area. Pepperberg did not offer food to Alex, but is he asked for a particular object to which she had referred, she gave it to him. After two years and two months of training, Alex had developed a reasonable vocabulary which he could actively apply to communicate with Pepperberg. He had mastered identification of nine objects, and could distinguish three colors, as well as count up to six. He was also able to distinguish between shapes.
Perhaps the most significant finding was that Ales learned to use the word "no" to refuse items he had not requested. If he wanted something, he would preface the object with the word "want" as in "want banana". It seems clear from this experiment that parrots are actively capable of communicating with people rather than simply repeating phrases with no understanding of them. Perhaps we sense this, seeing the pet parrot as somewhat akin to a young child. If intelligence can be equated with behavioral adaptability at its most basic, then clearly parrots must rank among the most talented members of the avian order.
Relatively little scientific research has been carried out into parrot behavior, but Irene Pepperberg's experiments offer a glimpse into a fascinating field. There are also a number of ways which parrots use body language, both in their interactions with each other and with people. A bird that has been hand-reared on its own tends to have different responses to a bird that has been kept with others of its kind, either during hand-rearing or in the nest.
A widely held view among breeders is that parrots which hae been hand-raised subsequently prove more difficulty to pair than parrots reared normally. This almost certainly relates not to the hand-rearing process itself, but to the manner in which  they are reared. Socialization of young birds is clearly vital at an early stage, before the birds have intensive contact with humans. Otherwise, pairing p a pet parrot can prove rather more problematical, depending to some extent on the species.