Why oh why do they never make sense?

[Viatrixa]

A few days ago Simo, my IRN, was spazzing around in his cage. Then I decided to sit next to him and I just spoke to him calmly, and whistled at him for a good half an hour or so.

Now, I have no musical bone in my body. My whistling is horrible to behold and completely off key - and is everything but tranquil. Despite this, my sweet greenling just sat on his perch calmly, stared at me, began to crunch his beak and blink slowly, withdrew his foot into his tumtum, tucked his head into his wing and dozed off!

Since then I've been doing it every evening - it's become a tiny little ritual by now. Like this I manage to make him go to bed about half an hour earlier than usual.

Perhaps there is some remnant in his memory of his mom singing him to sleep or some such? Because I can assure you, my whistling is everything but melodic Nevertheless, I greatly enjoy this little new ritual. (he used to throw a bit of a tantrum before bedtime before this). Calm sleepy baby!

I wonder what he dreams of? I actually read from a few scientific sources that birds do indeed dream. Endless fields of millet and apple trees, huge flocks of rainbow ringnecks? Hmm!

[Wolf]

Just because it is so broad in meaning, could you please help me with what you mean by spazzing around in his cage?

I am very fortunate that the closest town to my house is 11 miles away, although sometimes I wish that were the closest neighbor. There is an old family cemetary near my house.

Birds love music and singing and whistling, they like it a lot, to such a degree that they really don't care how well you do it, just as long as you do it for them.

I was singing with the birds recently and saw a corpse walking down the street, but it is ok, I just started singing again, louder and it killed itself again. I knew it could not survive our singing for long.

[liz]

Myrtle only sings la la la but hums when I sing to her. She loves any music even my awful singing.

[Pajarita]

Yep, same here. I can't sing worth a damn but my birds love it when I do it. They all love music but I think that, out of all the different species I have experience with, amazons are the ones that like it the best. Mami actually asks for it. I open their cage when it's just beginning to get light but don't turn on the lights or the radio until the sun is out and, sometimes, I get distracted and don't do it as soon as I should so she reminds me by going: "Tra la la? Tra la la?" which I understand it to mean: "Where's the music?"

[Viatrixa]

By "spazzy" I refer to restless! I have a bad tendency to use slang words that end up sounding incredibly vague!

But yeah, little Simo seems to love my horrible offkey whistling Its very satisfying to sit down next to his cage and tweet away, and just watch him get all tuckered out! I've owned cats and dogs in the past but owning a bird is a very new experience because they react to sounds very differently. I could be ranting angrily to myself about something I saw on the news etc. and Simo will only get excited when a dog (not all dogs of course) would get frightened.

It's gotten to the point where I could happily go on about everything he does, every day he's such an entertaining little guy. I can't wait to get a little friend for him and see what mischief two ringnecks can get up to.

I guess parrots just love noise in general? I watched an interesting documentary that stated their sounds can carry from one side of a huge forest to the other, which would make sense.

[Wolf]

I am accustomed to lots of slang words and phrases as I have actually spent most of my life on the road, but most slang takes on a geographical meaning that changes just a bit from place to place. Any way, use all the slang that you want, If I am unsure of meaning or degree of the term, I will happily as for what I need to understand, it is not a problem.

Yeah, they love noises and if you get loud they will accept that as an invitation for them to talk loud as well. Have you ever tried to make your self heard at a concert, even standing next to someone it is hard to hear them. Parrots sort of live that way and are constantly trying to be heard over the rest of the flock which is trying to be heard over itself.