I figured out how to dub/voice over-so I thought I'd take a video of oliver I already had, wipe out MY voice (since he won't talk when I'm in the room) and SNEAK up on him and get an actual video/voice of the great Oliver. The great Oliver is so pleased with the arrangements (his favorite reggae station AND feathered phonics) he's sitting silently making his contented snoring noise....so now I will have to leave the room and wait till he misses me enough to get vocal-THEN come back in and hit record.
It's cracking me up-he has no idea why he's the center of attention, but he's so pleased he's going to snore and chuckle and NOT make a sound loud enough to pick up.
And I'm experimenting with vocalization as real communication, not a trained response.....so I can't pull out the pignolias. As far as the experiment, when Oliver really wants to be near me, he'll start talking in my voice or howling like a wolf or calling out "what you doing?". What you doing is a responsive game-I usually call back "I'm picking my nose" or something and he laughs.....You have to go beyond the words to understand the game. He really wants to know "are you there" and when I respond he's happy that I responded. I doubt that many people will want to learn our language....LOL, it is a bit convoluted.
What's interesting-is that he uses vocalizations when he wants to find me or talk to the dogs or whatever. If he just wants to go the living room he flies down the hall to his perch. He's only caged at night or when I'm going to be out for awhile. For the most part he's honorable, although he has a crayola marker in his cage right now that no one is sure how it got there.....it's non toxic and it makes him happy-it's a prized possession, so I can't bear to take it away from him-although I do pick it up and admire it because it makes him happy to show off his marker. His sense of self, his idea of "mine" is similar to ours, but not quite as materialistic.
4 comments:
heeeeee heeeeeeeee!! I can't wait to hear him and see his shenanigans!
This is so interesting! My daughter has always wanted to train an African Gray parrot, or at least she is fascinated by birds that can be so highly taught!
we've got your voice for posterity, soon we will have oliver's too. my aunty essie had a budgie and they cahttered away to each other non stop, he used to imitate the phone ringing, and she'd come bustling into the room to pick it up and 'sweetie pie' would say 'hello' in essie's voice, and they'd both pack up laughing. she used to ring me and often i would be having a three way conversation with her and her budgie. clever???? absolutely, soon we will have oliver doing voice overs on the radio. go oliver go!!!
It's really been great-I've had a lot of highly intelligent beings surround me this year and they've kept me from just lying down on the path to death and old age.
Oliver the parrot takes training and trust to an entirely new level. I've worked and "gentled" wild caught parrots before, but never a Gray, and never a hand reared, human ruined one at that.
I can now stroke his chin, and we are working on petting along his back. In all matters involving "touch" Oliver demands reciprocity-if I don't allow him to nibble my hand or hair, he will not allow me to touch him-trust is clearly a two way street with us.
He rarely bites a fearful, defensive bite-but he will take a nip if I walk too close and ignore him. We are working on that.
He used to chatter and click is beak loudly as threat, but now he's experimenting with doing it while we play. It's touching in a way, he'll do it, and then check in with me to see if he's frightened me.
By not "defining" what is ok and what is not ok-we've expanded our vocabulary in a way. And I never chastise him for squawking or being in a bad mood-I put him up and leave him alone for awhile, but frankly, I appreciate the heads up.
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