Either we are crazy or Mave is trying to talk!

[guesswhokatysue]

Never ever having heard a bird talk before (in person) we are both scratching our heads on this one. We know that conures aren't the most vocabulary-inclined of the parrots out there, so it isn't that important if Mave talks, but it would be cool if he did say some stuff. To try and help this along, we have been saying "Pretty Bird" to him A LOT. (We say bird because we don't know if he is a he or a she..haven't gotten up the nerve to do sexing yet). Lately it sounds like he is TRYING to say it back. It's definitely not something an outsider would recognize as those words, but when we say it to him, he will pause and make a garbled noise that SOUNDS very similar to the tone we use when we say pretty bird. Are we nuts or could this be his attempt to mimic a phrase? (We definitely think he likes hearing it!).

I know some of your birds DO talk, so I was wondering if this was the beginning or if we are just mistaking normal bird sounds for attempted speech.

 

[wenz2712]

No.. your not crazy It does sound like he is trying to talk! I know alot of people with GCC that have a very good vocabulary

 

[guesswhokatysue]

No.. your not crazy It does sound like he is trying to talk! I know alot of people with GCC that have a very good vocabulary

That's encouraging..otherwise we might have had to get ourselves checked out for insanity . We will continue repeating this phrase to him and see if he keeps repeating it back and/or if it gets any clearer. Glad we aren't crazy because I was nervous there! He does listen to a radio all day..I wonder if he has any favorite songs? (I read a LONG time ago when I had budgies that when left alone some sort of noise was good for them because total quiet freaked them out due to that being a warning in the wild of a predator being close by...figured it was a similar thing for conures).

 

[wenz2712]

LOL... Yes the Radio definately keeps them company! I have mine on all the time for Codie and she has also picked up alot of words from it!

 

[Parrotmamma]

My GCC does not say any words , she has a lot of her own sounds , but no words.
My moms GCC ( My mom is dishgal on here) hers says many different words like...BABY ,I love you, I'm hear , sweet , yea and a few others.
Sounds like your might be a good talker too : )

 

[Grenage]

Ours merely makes strange noises, but I think I once spotted a dog bark in the mix. we picked him up with the assumption that he'd never speak a word.

 

[wenz2712]

My GCC does not say any words , she has a lot of her own sounds , but no words.
My moms GCC ( My mom is dishgal on here) hers says many different words like...BABY ,I love you, I'm hear , sweet , yea and a few others.
Sounds like your might be a good talker too : )

Wow.. Thats great, we have Mother and Daughter on the Forum

 

[Parrotmamma]

It's nice , we live across the street from each other so Forest and Crackers have regular play dates .
In fact he is here right now while she is out running errands

 

[wenz2712]

Thats brill You will have to take a pic of them all together !

 

[guesswhokatysue]

It's nice , we live across the street from each other so Forest and Crackers have regular play dates .
In fact he is here right now while she is out running errands

That's awesome! I bet they love play dates

 

[SweetPeasFriend]

Our female mitred didn't talk much, but when she did I couldn't have her on me. She would get so excited she couldn't control her nipping. She said only a few words, but I was convinced she understood everything we said.

Our blue crown talks up a storm. Sometimes he repeats a phrase back after hearing it once, and never says it again and other times he uses regular words. He says, "goodbye," when anyone leaves the house. That's the only time he uses that word. His first words were, "step up."

I make silly noises at them, and they seem to enjoy that. They both would make animal noises that they enjoyed. I think the bird has to like the sounds it's making. There are some words I say a lot to him, but he has his own verison of that word. He won't use my word. For example he knows the word for his toy cups, but he calls them by a purring noise. I swear he tries to teach me his versions of words sometimes.

He surprises me sometimes with his ability to form new sentences. He once asked me about five times in a row, "What's Sweet Pea?" Finally after I didn't answer he said, "A good boy!" I never asked him what he was. I only told him he was a good boy before that. He seems to know how to use the words, "What's, and That's" in sentences.

With both birds, 99.9 % of the time, any words have meaning to them. They rarely said them just to make sound. The only time I heard that was the occasional spouting off the entire vocabulary at sunset sometimes, or once I heard the mitred mumbled her few words in her sleep during an afternoon nap. Other than that, they tend to use words a lot like we do. Both of them seemed to talk a lot like two year olds.

Try making silly noises that get your bird's attention. If you see the eyes going crazy, then you know you have their attention. It's a good idea to stay calm and not move around too much, unless you want to teach them a gesture to go along with the word. My husband taught Sweet Pea to bow when he says goodbye. I am trying to teach him to hold his foot up to his beak and say, "ssh," right now. So far, the game is, he makes a loud noise to get me to shhsh him. He loves the sound, but hasn't done it yet.

Not my bird, but here's an example

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="[ame="http://www.youtube.com/embed/8tT7qVpvZhY"]Peekaboo with Bebo - YouTube[/ame]" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

 

[Rio Mom]

Definately sounds like trying to talk to me! My GCC, River talks quite a bit. Every day when we get up he has to tell me "I'm a good boy" "I'm a good good boy!" a couple dozen times LOL. He also says "Good Morning" "Whatta ya doing?" and most recently, "Pepp-errrr!" Pepper and him sometimes start saying "Pepper" back and forth to each other.

 

[guesswhokatysue]

Well I suppose we shall wait and see if Mave is a talker! We got him under the impression that he would NOT be a talker. That way if he never spoke a word we wouldn't be upset. On the flip side, if Mave did start to talk, my boyfriend would be so excited! We spent a little while last night watching videos of birds (bigger parrots) talking and he just thought it was hilarious. So long story short, whatever Mave wants to do, talk or not, we wont mind. IF he wants to talk that would be pretty cool though. haha

 

[SunMommy]

I don't think you are crazy Pyro says "Pretty Bird" all the time.

 

[guesswhokatysue]

I hope so. He's such a cute little guy. Talking would just make him THAT much cuter! hah