How Your Parrot Sees You!
Have you ever thought about how your parrot sees you and what the bird has to deal with while living in a human environment?
This is simply a short story, written from a cockatoo’s point of view. The actual words spoken by the cockatoo are in red.
Well, I just woke up and it’s still dark in here. I better let my humans know it’s time they got up and uncovered me!
“SQUAWK! Good morning! SQUAWK!”
I hear them now. There’s water running in that funny room they spend so much time in doing strange things.
But I like when they take me in there to play in the water that magically comes out of the wall.
“Good morning! Come here! I love you! Good morning!”
Here she comes now. The covers are coming off my cage and I can see the sunshine outside my window. Time to eat! Look, my human has these strange new feathers today.
Yesterday she was all green except for her heads and somehow she’s grown all new feathers that are blue and some funny color like sand. I do not understand how these humans grow different feathers every single day everywhere except on their heads.
Their heads look really funny because there are no feathers except on the top and those hang down. But I like to play with those head feathers. My humans play with my head feathers too and I love that.
“Mommy, I love you. Come here. Come here.”
She’s coming! She’s opening my door! Yeah!! I can get out now. I want her to pick me up and tickle my head.
Wait, she’s going back into that funny room where water comes out of the wall sometimes. She’s doing something strange to her head feathers. She’s making them all fluffy on top and the longs ones she’s making stay all together somehow so they hang down her back in one place. I wonder why she does that? I’m glad I don’t have to do stuff like that with my head feathers!
“Come here! I love you, Mommy!”
Yes, here she comes. Maybe she will pick me up this time. Here comes her hand. I’ll step on her hand and walk up her arm to her shoulder if she’ll let me. I want to play with those funny head feathers that she tied back somehow into this long crest. But my crest stands up so pretty and her’s just hangs there straight down her back. Oh yes, she’s sitting down with me and going to tickle me. I love when she does that.
“Pretty bird, I’m a pretty bird. Scritches”
I hope she never stops tickling my head feathers. She’s standing up and taking me with her! Yes! Fun!
We’re going into that other room that has water that runs out of a shiny thing. She’s opening that thing that is cold inside. I can feel the cold coming out and making me chilly. What’s she going to get for me?
“Apple! Peanut! Hungry birdie!”
She’s chopping up some nice veggies and fruits and I think they are going to be for me! Look, she’s got raw corn on the cob. I love to pick those yellow things off that hard inside. What’s that yellow thing? Ooooh, it’s a melon. I like that too. I don’t see any peanuts or walnut or pecans or even peanut butter though and I want those too.
“Peanut! Butternut! Cracker! Give me some! Yum Yum!”
There’s that round thing that got the yummy creamy peanuts in it. There’s the cracker. She’s making me a cracker corner with soft peanut stuff.
“Peanutbutter! Yummy! Give me some. Come on”
Oh yes, she’s handing me the cracker. Yummy. I can lick the bit of peanut butter off the cracker. I wish she’d give me lots more of it but she says something about it is fattening.
Now she’s taking my dish and putting those goodies into it. I am going to get breakfast now! Yes!
She’s taking me back to my house and putting my breakfast in there. I’m going back in and eat! I can play with her later. I’m hungry right now.
I’m going to walk down to her hand so I can step on my house easily. Look at that shiny stuff on her finger with that pretty sparkling stone in it. I want to get that sparkling thing!
“No, no, Baby, you can’t play with Mommy’s rings“, she says to me. I don’t know why I can’t have that sparkling thing on her hand for MY toy.
The very ends of her fingers have this strange red stuff on them. It looks like blood by my Mommy doesn’t seem to be hurt at all. If my toes were red like that, they’d hurt really bad and I’d scream. Why are her fingers bleeding, and why doesn’t the blood drip off? I don’t get it.
I’ll go in my house and see if she does something about her red fingers. Maybe it’s not blood, I wonder what it is? Should I clean it off for her after I eat and she picks me up again?
I think I should. I’ll try to help her because maybe she can’t get it off without my help. Maybe then she’ll give me that nice toy on her third finger to play with. But she always says it’s not for me. I’ll try again though.
Oh well, time to eat. I’ll try all the stuff my cup and if I don’t like anything, I can throw it out of my house so it’s won’t be in my way.
“Thank you. Yummy.”
Now my crop is all full and I feel happy. Time to see if Mommy needs help cleaning her red fingers. They weren’t like that yesterday I’m sure so it must need to come off!
“Baby, that’s my new manicure. You can’t take it off! Let’s play with this nice white paper bag instead. I hid a surprise inside. It’s a walnut but you have to untwist the bag to get it”
Uh oh, Mommy doesn’t like for me to clean that stuff on her fingers. I better go see about this white puffy thing that rattles when Mommy shakes it. I can tear it up and make a big mess with all the pieces. Wait, there’s a nut inside!
“Thank you, good good!”
That was a tasty walnut. Now I’ll shred the rest of the white thing it was inside.
I think it’s time to nap now. I want to go to my house now.
“Mommy, go home.”
Mommy knows what that means. She’s letting me get on her hand with that shiny toy on her finger and taking me to my house.
I’m going to go to the top perch and get into that nice snuggle mop Mommy gave me to hide in when I sleep so nothing can eat me.
“Sleepy sleepy time.“.
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About the Author: Nora Caterino, known as the Mississippi Bird Lady, or just Bird Lady for short, has trained, raised, and lived with birds for over 30 years. You can subscribe to access videos, audios, articles and receive unlimited one-on-one advice via email for one full year at:
==> http://www.eliteparrotsclub.com/talking.php
