Sparty and the Culuh

Spartacus Macaw is an amazingly intelligent bird. This 9 year old macaw's intelligence rivals that of my own. Within days of coming here almost five years ago, he learned our resident amazon parrot's entire vocabulary. You can have a conversation with Sparty with no problem. The thing about understanding a parrot's accent (yes accent) is that they talk in English really, really, REALLY fast.

Here's an example of a conversation I once had with the Blue Goose himself.

I started to walk out of the room.

Sparty: 'what are you gonna do now?'

Me: 'I'm going into the kitchen to make some food.'

Sparty: 'is it good?'

Me: 'yea I guess so'

Sparty: 'UH!!!!' (his word for food is borrowed from Pumpkinhead, it's the sound of a burp which is the syllable 'uh'. Sparty yells this when his pellet bowl is empty or when he smells something cooking he wants to try.

Or if he knows what the food is he wants, he just yells that word. Like 'taco' or 'pizza' or 'chocolate' (he only gets a little chocolate a couple times a year). But he yells 'chocolate' a lot. He really, really likes chocolate.

Once I gave him a sip of Kool Aid and he yelled "MMM! Sugah!"

Sparty is sad sometimes that he doesn't get to be a sun bird, a bird who is up during the day like all other birds. But he's used to our schedule now and was sleepy today and wanted to sleep.

When he sees the light of day, he says 'culuh' which is 'color' mispronounced. Remember what I said about parrot accents?

He got that from Pumpkinhead. Long ago, I was teaching Pumpkinhead the colors in a manner similar to how Alex the Grey was taught the colors by Dr. Pepperberg. That's another story but ever since those days, when Pumpkinhead wants to the light turned out at night, he says 'stop culuh'. Makes sense doesn't it?

Now what kind of brain put those ideas together? Black, or darkness, is the absence of color right? Yea takes a genius, more like takes a bird! Pumpkinhead is one pretty smart cookie.

And Sparty is like the Einstein of birds. But he says 'culuh' as in let's have some please and no more 'stop culuh.' But Sparty doesn't complain. He is such a good boy. He is the best bird on Earth and he knows it.