Meet Kiki the cockatiel, a bird who loves Earth, Wind and Fire so much that he sings the band’s classic hit, September, regularly — whether he’s just chilling by himself, singing along to the recording or driving his human crazy by whistling the catchy hook at ungodly hours.
“Kiki, it’s seven in the morning!” she tells him in one clip, raising an admonishing finger. “Silence!”
Kiki regards her for moment as if her request is absurd, then launches right back into September.
Hey, hey, hey
Ba-dee-ya, say, do you remember?
Ba-dee-ya, dancin’ in September
Ba-dee-ya, never was a cloudy day
In another video Kiki’s human sets her phone to record and leaves the room, and Kiki busts out his favorite song again. He’s got great taste in music!
I’ve always thought parrots are a fascinating example of animal cognition and further proof that we share our planet with billions of other minds who think and feel.
Humans and birds last shared a common ancestor more than 300 million years ago. That means between them there’s been more than 600 million years of divergent evolution resulting in radically different physiology, abilities and minds.
Yet parrots can speak while non-human primates (apes and monkeys) cannot!
For decades scientists thought apes and monkeys, by virtue of their relative similarity to humans, possessed an inmate affinity for language and that the physical limits of their vocal apparatus is what keeps them from speaking.
But a 2016 study by a team from Princeton University found monkeys do possess the vocal “hardware” to speak, meaning their mouths and throats are capable of making the sounds necessary for human language. It’s the lack of associated brain circuitry that prevents them from talking.
If the ability to speak and the ability to dance/appreciate music and rhythm is uniquely human among the primate order, and birds arrived at it at a different point in their evolutionary history, that means language and appreciation for music/rhythm developed separately along two divergent evolutionary lines!
That’s incredible and has intriguing implications for the cognitive abilities of animals.
A common argument is that birds with the ability to form human speech are simply mimicking sounds and don’t understand what they’re saying. That’s a natural assumption given what we think we know about non-human capacity for understanding language, but research suggests it’s wrong.
Take a look at this video of the famous late African grey parrot, Alex:
When Dr. Irene Pepperberg asks Alex how many blue blocks are present on a tray with a random assortment of blocks, balls and triangular toys in different colors, Alex can’t give a rote answer. First he has to understand that a question is a request for information and not part of the strange human ritual called small talk. He can’t simply count or guess at the number of blocks either.
Instead, Alex has to perform two calculations. He must tally the blue objects and count the number of them that are blocks, or he’s got to count the number of blocks and figure out how many of them are blue.
If he was simply repeating information in context — like saying “Hello!” when a person walks into a room — Alex wouldn’t be able to correctly answer the questions, and Pepperberg’s research funding would have dried up. Instead, Alex became a focal point of research that persisted for decades.
There’s no indication Alex could master syntax, which has proven elusive for even the smartest animals. But the African grey, who died in 2007 at 31 years old, was curious, asking questions that were unique and unexpected of an animal. He once asked his caretakers to describe his physical appearance, and the night before he died, he told Pepperberg: “You be good. I love you. See you tomorrow.”
We’ve talked about parrots before on PITB, including Snowball the dancing cockatiel who not only appreciates music and has a great sense of rhythm, but also has an entire repertoire of unique dance moves. Then there’s my personal favorite, Ruby the African grey, who has demonstrated mastery of absolutely vile, uniquely British insults.
Sure, there may not be much research value in hearing Ruby hurl verbal abuse at her very loving human, Nick Chapman, but few things have made me laugh as hard as that extraordinarily foul-mouthed bird. She has to be seen and heard to be believed. (But if you’ve got kids in the room, stick with the wholesome Snowball. He’s got serious moves.)
Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to teach a certain feline a few Earth, Wind and Fire songs in the hope that he’ll give up on the screeching meows and use his natural falsetto for a more gentle wake-up experience.
Hey, hey, hey
Ba-dee-ya, hey there my Big Buddy
Ba-dee-ya, Little Buddy’s hungry!
Ba-dee-ya, get your lazy ass up and feeeeeed me!
Pain In The Bud 
🤣🤣🤣🤣Kiki has great taste. Great group. I put my phone on high and my cat went looking for a bird!!
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Kitty thought an easy meal was around the corner then? lol
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👍🦜. My feral tries to get birds in high bushes in garden. Good thing he only kills rats
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And that look on Buddys face? Same look on my cat. When my cat gets off bed that is my cue to get off the bed. God forbid if i get a bit of extra sleep. And if i stay on bed he just gets on and off.
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Cats are relentless when they want you to get up. In a way it’s a blessing they can’t talk because I’ve been known to use some brutal language when Bud is intent on waking me up and I’m determined to get more sleep. I don’t want him repeating what I say in those circumstances.
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I really enjoyed this.
My daughter has had a parrot since she was 8 years old. She’s now 28. Over the years, I’ve been amazed by what Shamrock can do.
At night, I would cover his cage, but before that, I would say, “Night night, Shammy, I love you.”
And she would say, “Night night, Mama.”
Shamrock can speak in her own voice or in my daughter’s voice. Which is a little freaky. And Shammy has played tricks on me before.
One time, I was cleaning upstairs and had emptied a box. Instead of taking the box downstairs I threw it down the stairs because I had more work to do up there.
Well, the box flew past Shammy’s cage and next thing I hear is my daughter screaming. I about killed myself to get downstairs and see what was wrong with her. When I got down there, Shamrock was the only one there, my daughter, I remembered, was at school. So I looked at Shammy and asked her if she had screamed, and she started laughing at me… in my daughter’s laugh!
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That’s freaky as hell lol. Some parrots, like “Eric the Fookin’ Legend,” have very artificial-sounding voices, while some sound just like humans. Ruby sounds like an old British guy and IIRC her human said she picked it up from when he’d have his friends over to watch soccer (football in the UK) matches and his buddies would scream at the TV. It’s obvious from the videos that he loves her very much.
So Shamrock’s 20 years old, yeah? She could have another 30 or 40 years left. That’s incredible.
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This is true. Luckily when Katy moved out, she took Shamrock with her. I don’t think Shammy would have liked being without her. They are still close.
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Sorry for calling Shamrock “he” sometimes. See, this type of parrot has to have a DNA test in order to figure out its sex. We never did that, but just called Shammy “he.” Then, when “he” was 13 years old, “he” laid an egg! So “he” is a she! lol Sometimes, I forget my pronouns when I am speaking about Shammy because we called her “he” for so long. LOL
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What happened with the egg? Did she hatch a baby parrot?
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No, there was no baby parrot. She wasn’t married, you see. 😀 Her vet said sometimes that happens.
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I have 2 very vocal kitties that could use some lessons singing EWF Give me treats Thanks for the info and humor And any tips on singing
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Anyone want to be the first to lock their cat in a room with a song playing on a loop for 5 hours? Either kitty will come out singing or break down the door with claws out, ready for revenge!
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Love that song (September) – and the Headbangin’ cockatoo! 🤘 Definitely like Cindy Lauper better than the other song.
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I think what happened is that Snowball’s original human gave him up, brought him to a shelter with a box of his toys and a Backstreet Boys CD along with a note about his favorite song to dance to, and they thought it was a joke until they saw him dancing.
But yeah, if I had custody of him I’d start weaning him off the Backstreet Boys lol.
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Backstreet Boys? NOOOOOO. Anything but that. Dancing to the oldies would be great. And when i start dancing to the oldies in one place all 3 the cats go upstairs. 🤣🤣
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Buddy would be wise to learn! We can all use a little more EW&F in our lives!
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I told him he can learn Let’s Groove if he prefers that over September. Or The Johnson Brothers’ Strawberry Letter 23.
“Meow meow meow meow, meow meow, meow meow! Oooh, oooh, oooh, ooh ooh!”
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To Joy. No. But when i say what do want to my cat over and over he keeps meowing. Like on cue everytime. I know what he wants. I’m just messing with him. 🤣🤣
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I know I’m just being picky but, Kiki is a Cockatiel and Snowball is a Cockatoo. they both come from Australia, but they’re not the same kind of parrot.
Don’t know why they gave them similar names. just makes it confusing.
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You’re right, I meant to fix that and got distracted. Thanks for the reminder!
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