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The Parrot Episode · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of I
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Heart Radio Cale and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark,
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: and there's Charles W. Trills a Lot Bryant, and there's
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: Jerry Roland, who's bright plumage is sticking me in the
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: face right now. And this is that was a great part. Uh.
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: And this is Stuff you Should Know about parrots, which
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: is a surprisingly interesting topic. Chuck. Nice one, nice pick.
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: That's good. Just do that, dude, the whole time. We're
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: gonna we're gonna hammer out like a means of communication,
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: just with that sound throughout this episode. Okay, oh, man'd
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: be kind of great. You already broke character, Chuck, I
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: think to the relief of every single person listening to
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: So you were surprised, huh yeah, I mean, I know
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: parents are knee or whatever, but I and I knew
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: that they were probably one of the smartest animals, or
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: some of them are. Some are just you know, dumb
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: as door knobs, but there are plenty that are really smart.
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: They make up for the really dumb ones. Um. But
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: I just I know I didn't know that they were
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: quite this this neat and also one of my new
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: favorite things is like watching little happy birds run like
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: hop around and sing. And there's a lot of parrots
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: that do that. It's like one of their traits, Like
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: they're really cute. Uh kind of animal. I love it.
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: In your mid forties, you're turned onto the joy of
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: birds chirping and jumping around. I didn't say I was
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: turned on by it, turned onto it. Oh gosh, there's
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: a big difference between those two. Uh. Have you ever
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: had any experience with parrots or known bird people? Uh? No,
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: so tangentially I was um UM's grandma has or had
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: a parrot. She passed a year or so ago, but
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: her parrot is still alive. Um she had a couple,
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: Brutal and Brutus, and Brutal was fine, but Brutus terrorized
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: you me when she was growing up, I mean like
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: terrorized her. And they didn't see her for many years.
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: And when I was when I visited and met her
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: grandma and Brutus, Brutus like at first was just kind
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: of like oh hum. And then he you could tell
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: the moment he recognized Jumie and he lunged at her.
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: He was like, you, I remember you. After all those years,
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: he still just did not like umi for some reason. Yeah.
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: I mean, I've got some parrots and bird stuff that
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: I'll pepper throughout when it's applicable. But you know, bird folks,
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: I mean, if you're a bird person. My experience has
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: been bird people are just sometimes a little eccentric. Oh yeah.
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: Bird people are definitely a certain type, just like cat
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: people are a certain type and dog people are certain types.
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: But there's a lot of people and dog people sure. Yeah, yeah,
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: I think that's one of the things that makes bird
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: people seem eccentric is there's far fewer of them. But
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: you know, one of the things I didn't realize it
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: could be. That could be also like the extensive stacks
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: of paperback fantasy novels that just line their floors throughout
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: their house. That too. Yeah. But one of the things
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: that I didn't realize is that birds are the fourth
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: um fourth most popular pet in the United States, which
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: makes sense if you think about it, But I never
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: really thought about all mine. Mine just stops after dogs,
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: which are number one. Yeah, I mean dogs, cats, what
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: is it? Fish? And then birds. I would expect goats
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: to be somewhere on there, but I think people just
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: love seeing goats and not necessarily owning them. Yes, sure,
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: but I think a lot of people who own birds
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: come especially parrots, come to feel the same way after
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: they've bought a parrot, as we'll see. Yeah, so should
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: we dig into this thing I thought we already had.
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: So there are a lot of different kinds of parrots. Uh,
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: they are, I mean, they're close to four hundred species
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: of the order. And I'd look this up in a
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: couple of places. Uh, citize for mese. Mm hmm, what
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: did you get? Uh, yeah, I thought you were gonna
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: say Citi signs, but yeah, that's that's how I would
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: have said it, okay. Uh, And we're talking like you know,
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: if you think of a parrot, you probably think of like, oh,
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: it's a macaw or an African gray. But if you've
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: seen a parakeet or a lorikeet, or a cockatiel or cockatoo,
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: those are all parrots as well. Yeah, so I love
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: birds as well. There's there's a lot of different kinds
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: of birds that are parrots, and um, some of them
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: just don't even really look like it. You're like, no,
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: that's an eagle, or I think that's a kind of vulture.
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: Like they're very they're really varied um order um. But
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: they all have in common a couple of things that
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: will see, one of which is a short beak that's
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: curved usually uh, which is very very powerful. And then
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: they also have a certain kind of toe arrangement called
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: the zygodactyl toe arrangements talk more about in a little bit,
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: but other than that, they are really kind of very
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: like I was saying, in size and shape and color um,
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: and even down to some kinds of species. They can
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: be varied among the male and the female so much so.
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: I think there's one, Oh, I can't remember which one
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: it was, um, but it was a kind of parrot,
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: smallish parrot where the males and the females look so
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: totally different color wise that they were thought to be
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: different species for a very long time. That's right, that's
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: the Solomon Island electus. Thank you, show off, but thank you.
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: So you know, like you said, they vary in size.
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: There are some that are so big, like uh, the
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: Coca poa in New Zealand that can be like a
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: seven pounder. Did you see any videos of those guys?
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: They're great. They can't even fly there so big, No,
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: they don't. They don't even they bound along their wings.
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: They don't work for flying, but they use them for
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: stability because they mostly climb trees. But they're yeah, they're
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: ground dwelling. They look like little furry or feathery mammals
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: basically sort of. I don't know why that hasn't been
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: a Disney character yet. I don't either, because they also
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: seemed to be very sweet. I saw some uh New Zealand, um,
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: like I guess researchers who were tracking them, and I
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: don't even think they put this one Coca poa under
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: when they took a blood sample. It was just laying
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: in their lap and I think it was just like
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: just basically like yeah, just hanging out, you know, like
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: go ahead, just take the blood and let me let
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: me go again. So they're super super chill um. But yeah,
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: they would make a perfect Disney character for sure. Yeah.
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: So those are the big daddies. Um. There are ones
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: from New Guinea that are just a few inches, way
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: less than an ounce. I think the highest Innthe macaw
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: is generally the biggest just in size. Uh. They can
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: be three and a half feet long. Um, they can
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: have four with wingspans and I think the kind of
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: trademark characteristic when you think of parrots though, or the
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: vibrant colors. Um, you know, some are like the gray
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: African gray is mainly just gray that has a little
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: bit of red. But when you think of parrots, you
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: think of those really brightly colored blues and greens and
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: reds and little rosy cheeks and stuff like that. Yeah, which,
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: and I mean they're obviously the reason why parrots have
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: very bright colors is to attract mates. Like that's basically
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: the reason for anything to have a bright color, unless
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: it's showing that it's poisonous. And as far as we've
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: ever found, parrots are not poisonous. But one of the specialties,
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: do you think, right, dead by dawn? One of the
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: specialties of the pigments in parrots. It's apparently not found
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: in other birds. The chuck is that those pigments have
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: antibacterial properties, which I guess keep them from getting like
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: wing rot or something like that. Yeah, there's um, there's
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: so I think it's called citico boy, here we go.
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: Citico Fulvin's are those pigments, and they're found only in
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: parts There aren't even any other birds to have these. Yeah,
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: But I mean other birds have colors, but they don't
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: have that specific kind of anti bacterial agent color pigment, right,
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: that's right. And you mentioned the toes. That is a
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: um you know, along with I think like owls and woodpeckers,
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: and I think there are some other birds that hive
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: these zygodactyl feet. But that means they have the usual
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: four toes, but most birds have three in one arrangement,
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: like three up front, one in the back. In this case,
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: they have two upfront, two in the back. So Juliet
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: helped us put this together, and she basically points out
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: that like this means they have two sets of opposable thumbs.
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: So that's why they're really good climbers, and they can
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: hold on to a branch like it's you know, until
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: the sun comes up dead by down style exactly. And
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: if you've ever seen a parrot work a nut or
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: seed or something with the combination of the beak in
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: those four toes, it's pretty pretty dexterrous. Yeah. That's also
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: again how those coca posts can climb trees without any
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: ability to fly. They I mean, they can maneuver, they
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: can hang and believe there's an upside down hanging type
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: of parrot, which I'm not sure why it hangs upside down,
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: maybe just to show off that it has zygodactyl toes.
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: But they can do a lot with those things. And yeah,
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: in combination with their beak there, they're really working it.
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: Apparently their beak as well. Um, that sharp, short curved
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: beak that that all parrots have is extremely powerful. Um.
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: They move independently of one another lower beak in the
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: upper beak, so it can exert a lot of force. Um.
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: And and that really helps out because a lot of
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: their food are like really hard nuts and seeds and
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: things like that, but they they're nothing in the face
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: of a parrots beak. Yeah, it's if you've ever been
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: chopped down on by a parrot, it's rough. Yeah, they'll
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: take a chunk of skin out. Yeah, they were. When
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: I worked in Arizona, that restaurant in Yuma, Julianna's Patio Cafe.
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: It was an outdoor cafe and they had the owner, Julia,
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: had parrots and I think they were like five of them,
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: just kind of behind where you eat on these stands,
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: not even caged. And they were mean, the snakes, not
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: to her they were, but if you were not her
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: and you went up and you were like, oh, let
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: me give you a little ear scratch. One of those
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: things could just fly its little head around and chop
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: down on your finger and it feels like it's in
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: a vice. Yeah, well you're lucky. They could have taken
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: your finger clean off. Probably there's there's anecdotal stories that, um,
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: that we are not able to verify. But this, it's
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: definitely worth mentioning that a large parrot could snap a
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: broomstick with its beak, which is, if you read it,
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: it's really impressive. When you say it out loud, you
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: feel very foolish a little bit. I mean, sure, I
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: guess it depends on the broom but it's it's really old, rotted,
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: termite rotted broomstick. Yeah, let's just say it's really really
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: a lot of force. Um, and my finger can vouch
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: for that. Was that some of the peppering you alluded
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: to earlier, that's one one kind of pepper, one grain
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: of pepper. Got I had a bird that'll come up later.
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: I can't wait for that one. Um. So Chuckie, you're
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: saying that, like, um, they wouldn't bite Julia Julianna Julianna
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: Julia because she was part of their flock. As we'll
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: see um. And it turns out that there are some
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: parrots get along with other species of parrots and even
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: other species of birds and other kinds don't so much
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: so that when you read like a parrot owner's guide,
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: they're basically like, if you're gonna get you know, other
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: birds do not get this kind with this kind. And ironically,
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: love birds are famously mean to other species of birds.
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: But if you're in their flock, then you're you're one
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: of them. And that's one thing that one reason why
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: parrots make such great pets for so many people is
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: because they imprint with humans really well, and are you're
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: just a member of their family and they're a member
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: of your family. That's just the way it is to
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: the parrot. If you're an outsider interloper, yeah, they'll take
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: your finger off like it's an old broomstick. So Yumi
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: was never ingratiated herself, I I guess not, which just
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: surprising because everybody likes you, you know, I know, like
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: animals flocked to her like snow white. Basically, yeah, she's
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: always she's got this lamb following around. Now. I don't
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: know where that thing came from. It is cute, it
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: is the lambing is coming soon, unfortunately for the boy.
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: Uh well, let's take a little break there then and
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: we'll come back and talk a little bit about Uh,
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: parrots in the wild. Want to learn about astortic how
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: to take the perfect, but all about fractal get Kiscon's
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: hunt the Lizzie Border murders. That they kind of all
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: runs on the plane every day. We should know. Word up, Jerry. Okay,
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: So Chuck, we were talking. We're going to talk about
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: parrots in the wild UM, which is where they used
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: to be um more often than not, and still are.
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: Like there's something like three hundred and about three hundred
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: and sixty known species of parrots UM. But a lot
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: of them are dying off really quick, as we'll talk about.
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: But the thing about parrots were learning is that they're
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: really resilient, Like they can adapt and find homes and
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: make homes for themselves in new climates. So you'll find
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: them typically in their preferred area around the tropics, around
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: the equator, typically in the southern hemisphere, but you're also
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: going to find them like living up in mountain ranges,
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: high up on rocky outcrops. Um. You'll find them in
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: Chicago's Hyde Park. There's a bunch of Connecticut. They're kind
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: of all over the place. Even though no native species
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: UM from the United States are are still around, there's
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: still plenty of like wild feral parrots that live out
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: in the US. Yeah. When I was in Australia, UM,
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: we had a couple of down days and you know,
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: my buddy Scotty, our friend Scotty, came over to join us,
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: and um we Scotty and I went down to wine
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: country south of south of Melbourne, which is just some
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: of those beautiful land I've ever seen in my life.
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: And we were at a wine winery overlooking this huge
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: vineyard and then like the sort of woodland jungle, and
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: I saw these huge white birds flying around down there,
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: and we were the only people there. We were there
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: in the off season, so everywhere we went, we were
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: the only two people kind of tasting. And so we got,
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: you know, to hang out with the the winemakers, which
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: is cool, and they said, uh, there was a cockatoose
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: and I was like, I was just a naive American.
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: I didn't know they just flew around Australia like that.
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: And I said, just so you know those like they
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: sell those in stores for a lot of money in
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: the United States, And I said, it's just crazy to
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: me that they're just flying around. Yeah, apparently there was
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: a time not terribly long ago where you could see
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: beautiful green cockatoos um or parakeets i'm sorry, flying around
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: the United States until we drove them to extinction about
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: a hundred or so years ago. Yeah, the Carolina went
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: in there, a North Carolina parakeet, the Carolina parakeet. Yep.
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: It was just this gorgeous, green, beautiful parakeet that was
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: native to the United States. Um and I saw some things. So,
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: you know. Passenger pigeons were also famously um uh, driven
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: to extinction. The last Carolina parakeet died in the same
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: cage that the last passenger pigeon, Martha died in at
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: the Cincinnati Zoo. So the Cincinnati Zoo had the honor
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: of keeping captive the last passenger pigeon and the last
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: Carolina parakeet and killing them. Right, They had this one
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: zookeeper who was in charge of strangling the last one
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: just to give it over with because they couldn't couldn't
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: stand the tin in any longer. You know, They're like,
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: just get it over with. Oh, I've got a joke
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: that is, so I'm not going to tell because I
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: would upset bird lovers, So tell me later. I'll tell
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: you later. Uh So, these parents, they mainly stay up
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: in the trees. Obviously, they do come down if they
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: were going to drink something and sometimes if they need
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: to find something to eat if they can't get it
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: up there, And they generally do this kind of follow
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: the humans patterns of kind of hanging out and doing
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: the stuff during the day and sleeping at night unless
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: you're a coca peo or a night parrot, and they
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: are nocturnal, which is um. I think they're the only
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: two of the species. What's neat about those coca posts?
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: Who is um? They be from being nocturnal, the eyes
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: have migrated from the sides of their heads towards the
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: front of their face, and they've developed this kind of
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: puffy feathers around their eyes. So they're also known as
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: the owl parrot because they've started to kind of resemble
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: the owl, and the owl is typically nocturnal as well.
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: Are you going to get a Coca peo. I think
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: I might. Actually, there's only a hundred and fifty left me.
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: I could probably be arrested, but at the very least,
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: I'm going to give it a shot. You know. So
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: they are omnivores and they will generally eat seeds and
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: nuts and plants and fruits and things and insects. But
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: if they need to eat, you know, a parrot's gonna
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: do what a parent's gonna do. This is crazy, and
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: this is you know, this can cause problems. I think
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: the African gray can feast on corn, which has caused
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: problems with corn crops in New Zealand. This is the
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: crazy part. Uh. In the kind of mid eighteen hundreds
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: in New Zealand, keys k e a s We're discovered
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: to be and this is sort of horrifying. Eating sheep
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: and attacking sheep in the middle of the night. Yes, well,
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: I guess it was in the middle of the night
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: because they're not they're not nocturnal. But in my mind,
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: it's a horror movie and it happens in the middle
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: of the night to me the most, the like the
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: middle of the day makes things even more horrific. Things
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: aren't bad. Things aren't supposed to happen in the middle
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: of You're supposed to happen at night in the woods,
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: you know, good point, not not in the middle of
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: a field in the day. So seeing some parrots attack
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: and eat a sheep in the middle of the day,
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: that's bad news. But those things, actually they look a
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: lot like eagles more so than parrots to me. So
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: you give them a pass. Yeah, that's fine. What I'd
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: like to see. I'd like to see them all try
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: to carry off a sheep together with teamwork, you know,
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: But I don't think that's how it goes. Well, there's
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: your cartoon that's like a ziggy cartoon. I think they
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: I think they put parrot repellent on because you know,
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: they back in the day, they would just kill them
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: all and let God sort of ount. That's what happened
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: to the Carolina parrot key. Yeah exactly. But they, you know,
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: eventually they were like, we can't just kill these keys,
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: Like we're a more evolved you know, humankind at this point,
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: and we got to stop this stuff. We gotta protect them.
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: So they've looked for ways to to keep from having
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: to do that, and one of them is that parrot
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: repellent on the cheep's bellies, which it's probably like that
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: stuff you tried to use on your fingernails to keep
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: from biting them. I used to coat my fingers in that.
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: But you just slather in a sheep's belly and call
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: it a day. Yeah, it's very better. One thing I
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: did want to add though, when you were talking about
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: their range and they can end up in weird places.
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: I remember when we would do commercial shoots in Pasadena, California,
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: and we would have the Unlucky Parrot Location, which is
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: basically anywhere in Pasadena. On any given day, you could
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: be near a bunch of parrots making a ton of
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: noise and you can't shoot, You know how it is
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: with sounds like you can't you can't pay the guy
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: to turn off his blower or his lawnmower. Yeah, but
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: you can't. Yeah, I want two and free reign at
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: the craft services table. But yeah, those uh, those Pasadena parrots,
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: they have disrupted many film shoot so um. Yeah. So
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: you're like, well, wait a minute, there's not native parrots
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: in the United States. How are there a bunch of
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: parrots in the trees in Pasadena? Well, people let their
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: parents go, or people die in their parrots escape or
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: what have you. Um And like I was saying before,
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: it's like they're really resilient. And once they start forming
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: breeding pairs, even though they have like a really low
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: reproduction rate. Um as we'll see in a second, they
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: they can they can survive. They can make new niches
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: for themselves, which is pretty cool. But they're all there's
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: there's a lot in Florida, Texas, and California. I think
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: every kind of species that has a population is supported
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: in all three of those states. Right in the Connecticut
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: one is just a that's a very weird thing. Yeah.
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: In Chicago's Hyde Park too, it's like the roof caves
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: in on people's houses in the winter in Chicago. There's
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: so much snow and it's so cold, Like, how are
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: parrots surviving? But apparently they do. It's crazy, so they
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: live And this is this is pretty great. This is
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: where stuff you should know things intersect or love of uh,
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: collections and groupings of animals, sounds of assemblage. Yeah, pandemonium
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: of parrots is what it's called. For good reason, like
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: I said, because they are super noisy and can be
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: aggravating in large numbers. When they're out in the wild
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: and they live together, they help each other out, they
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: feed with each other, they look out for each other,
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: they keep track of each other, and they communicate with
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: each other. All those squawks and screams that you hear
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: when a bunch of when a pandemonium is gathered, is
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: them talking to each other. And they might be saying,
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: you know, film crew, or they might be saying snake
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: or monkey like look out. Yeah. I also have the impression,
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: from spending hours and hours of watching beautiful parrots of
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: all types seeing and be happy um that that they're
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: just basically sharing how they're feeling at any given points
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: sometimes too, and that a lot of times it's real positive.
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: You know, they're talking about how great things are beautiful
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: the day is. I could be anthropomorphizing, but it really
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: really seems that way. They just seem like kind of
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: a happy, happy type of animal. I'm like, I want
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: to buy into that too. I'm with you. Just go ahead.
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: It's like, prove me wrong. I'll give you ten years,
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: and in those in the ten year span, I'll enjoy
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: these parrots for what I think they're doing. I agree.
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: I mean, we all laughed at you early on, and
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: now she's got that lamb following her around, right like
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: miracles can happen. We have to get some of that
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: um that nail biting stuff to slather on the lamb's
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: belly in case it runs into some keys. Uh. So
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: they mate and they have little babies. They are generally monogamous,
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: and males and females work together to raise the kid
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: and to care for the little baby. From the moment
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: that it's an egg, they will sit on it for
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: eighteen to thirty days and even take turns. I think
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: the mom usually does most of the sitting while the
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: male goes out and get some food. But the male
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: can also be like, why don't you why don't you
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: stretch your leg, you stretch your toes? Yeah exactly, so
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: um yeah, But for the most part, the male gets
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: the food or something like that. But the um lovebirds
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: also are like famously monogamous, and they so much so
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: that when they're separated, when a breeding pair of separated,
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: when they're brought back together, um all, first of all,
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: they'll start to like lose energy and get real depressed
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: and sad. And then when they're brought back together. They
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: reform their bond by feeding one another with their beak.
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: It's very cute, isn't That's sweet? Um? Yeah, I kind
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: of have have a thing for love birds now. They're
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: just super cute and pretty and so you know what,
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: you know, what birds are not monogamous, which one's casual
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: sex birds raw lowbirds. Yeah, but good for them, you know.
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: So sure they're just out there doing their thing, not
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: hurting anybody, as long as they're upfront about what they're
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: in there for. You know, Rob Blow, is this from
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: his sex scandal from like years ago. No, I just
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: think of Rob Blow is like being difficult to pin
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: down and you know, love and life, having having a
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: good time, just doing his thing. That's what I think.
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: He's really worked to change that image over the past
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: three decades. He really has not with me, but I
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: recognize what he's been trying to do. Okay, famous lothario
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: Rob Blow. Oh well, I also dated myself because I
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: would say a good third of our listeners are like,
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: who's this Rob Low guy. It's like, oh yeah, that's right,
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: he was, so they might know them. I was gonna say,
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: it's like Mad magazine making fun of Spiro Agnew when
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: we were little, and we're like, who who is the
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: Spiro Agnew? Right? To us, Rob Low is the sax
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: player from st Almost Fire who made a sex tape
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: to them. He's the happy dad and uh Parks and
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: wreck guy. I also think of him as literally dude
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: from um west Wing. I don't remember what his character's
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: name was, No need to email, I can look it
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: up myself. I never saw that show. Oh you didn't.
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: It's good. I think you'd like it, all right. Even
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: if you don't like Aaron Sorkin, you'd like west Wing.
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: He's a little wordy for me, Yeah, sure, yeah, a little,
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: a little over the top every single second of every
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: single show. But west Wing was his. It was. It
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: just worked perfectly for him. Yeah. I don't want to
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: knock Aaron Sorkin. I'll just say he has a fondness
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: for typing. But so there was this one, this one,
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: this one Rob Low sketch on Sara Live. I know
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: we've talked about before, but remember when Aaron Sorkin was
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: busted with mushrooms in the airport. No, so this that
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: news came out on a week when Roblow was hosting
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: Sara Live. So they did one of those famous like
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: walk and talk shots from West Wing and in the background,
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: suddenly suddenly it converts from like the West Wing that
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: they're walking through and now they're being chased in a
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: black and white movie by a giant like iguana. And
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: so they they're still walking talking about, you know, the
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: administration of the president, but they're also kind of jogging
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: running away looking behind them at this giant iguana has
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: really really great stuff. So how many breaks have we taken? Charles?
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: Just one? Do you want to take another one? Or
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: keep going a little more? I think maybe let's wait
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: one minute. Let's talk about their uh intelligent and altruism,
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: and I think that's those are two lovely topics. Well,
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: before we do that, I've got one more thing about mating.
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: So um they actually when they reproduce, they'll they'll lay
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: between like two and eight eggs at a time, and
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: their incubation period can be really fast, like eighteen days
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: thirty days. But they also usually only have a couple
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: of um chicks survive, and they spend a lot of
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: time and energy raising their young almost to a humanlike degree,
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: not not for eighteen years, but for up to like
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: four years. In some cases, the offspring, the chicks will
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: you know, grow up with the parents. Um, so they
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: actually have a very low reproductive rate. So it's a
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: big problem when humans come along and you know, kill
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: off pair of populations because they're slow to recover. They're
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: slow to reproduce. So just put that that little pin
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: in your hat and smoke it. I just can't get
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: that one right these days. So parents are super smart,
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: like we talked about. And there are a couple of
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: really great examples of how and how they display this.
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: And one is is they can use tools like they
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: have seen parrots use sticks to like scratch their heads
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: and stuff like that. Uh, this one is amazing. They
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: found that cockatoos have been observed using sticks to drum
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: on logs as part of a courtship sort of mating ritual.
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: Because nothing women love more than a drum solo. You know,
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: I know it really just every woman alive thinks of
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: drum solo is the greatest musical thing you can do.
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: That's usually when I go to the bathroom to Yeah,
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: I mean it's a hats off, but yeah, it's just
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: kind of whatever that don't happen much anymore. No, you
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: don't see those, but um, the one that knocked my
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: socks off, chuck was Um, there's at least oh the
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: greater vassa parrot. They will use little pebbles or whatever
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: to grind up seashells, and the male does this, and
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: the male will eat the seashell and re urgitated into
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: like this vomity calcium rich paste as an offering to
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: pair of female he's trying to make with, which sounds
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: gross and weird until you realize that other birds eat
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: calcium rich shells or chew on them or whatever to
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: to strengthen the shells of their own eggs. But parrots
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: are the only known birds to actually use tools to
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: grind the shells up to make them easier to digest.
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: And the males offering it to the woman is a
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: like a basically like, hey, look at how well I'm
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: taking care of you and our kid. I'm regurgitating seashells
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: for you that I'm grinding up. That's astounding tool used.
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: Like you just do not see that elsewhere except in
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: like maybe primates here there. Well, I mean, if you
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: want to talk about cool, their altruism is something that
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: you don't see much in the animal kingdom at all.
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: Um very few non human species show this trait, and
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: no birds before just a couple of years ago. We're
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: even on this list. They even tested crows out because
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: they're super smart, I think in and they gave them
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: an altruism tests and they're like, nope, you guys failed
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: the test. But they did this. And this was from
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: just January of last year in current biology, ironically, like
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: just a couple of months before the coronavirus hid. They're like,
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: they don't have anything to talk about this month exactly,
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: they're doing some important work. And they did this um
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: exercise where they got these birds together, these parrots, and
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: that they put them in pairs and they basically put
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: a wall between them with a hole, and they were separated,
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: and one of them had a token and one of
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: them had that you would trade for food, but one
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: of them didn't. One of them had the food and
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: one of them had the token. So these birds literally
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: figured out how to work together to exchange like here,
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: you take this token because you've got the food, feed yourself.
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: But remember me, if the roles are ever reversed, right,
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: which is a totally different thing. It's a reciprocity. So
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: these these mccaus showed that there was it. The African
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: gray is the one that passed. Yeah, and they're typically
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: known as like possibly the smartest birds of all time.
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: But um, the like in addition to like, here you go,
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: have this, have the like, take this token and get
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: yourself some food even though I'm not getting anything back.
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: When the when the roles were reversed, the birds would
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: do the same thing, so they would get their turn
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: basically later on. And so yeah, you have altruism and
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: reciprocity tool use. Um. They're also very famous for mimicry too,
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: which a lot of birds can mimic sounds. I saw
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: a video of a minor bird um in the wild,
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: I guess being filmed with a camera as well as
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: a video camera, because it made an exact sound of
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: a digital camera taking a picture. It was astounding. It
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: sounded like they dubbed the sound of a camera over
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: this bird. I wonder about that on some of these videos.
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: This is I mean, I hope, but it was legit.
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: I mean it was. It looked like a legit wildlife
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: video or a clip from one. But a lot of
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: birds can do that. But the thing is other birds
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: can't do. What parrots can do is like their mimicry
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: is at a whole different level compared to other birds.
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: And they're basically the only bird we know of that
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: can mimic a human voice. I think that's a great
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: place for a cliffhanger, right, sure, all right, we'll come
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: back and we'll talk more about mimicry right after this.
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: I want to learn about a terrestortic college act how
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: to take the bird. But but all about fractals getting
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: Kiscon's hunt, the Lizzie Border murders, that they kind of
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: all runs on the plane every day. We should know.
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: Word up, Jerry. All right, so we're back and we're
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: talking about birds vocalizing and mimicking things. Uh, they have
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: voices that vary by region, which is really neat. They
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: have different dialects basically, and if a parent moves to
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: a new area where they have a different kind of dialect,
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: they will adjust, you know what Julia refers to as
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: their accents to fit in, which is really really amazing. Yeah,
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: it is amazing and apparent. I was reading up on
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: a study about that chuck and they found that a
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: bird that lives, like, these dialects will be kind of regional,
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: but some regions butt up against one another. So if
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: you're in a nest that um is adjacent to two regions,
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: they'll kind of use it. They'll go back and forth.
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: And they found like the differences in the basic structure
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: of the calls are different enough that that they're dialectical.
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: But then within these nests there's different variations, slighter variations
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: within the dialects, so like they're they're communicating into some
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: really astounding degrees. And like I was saying that, you know,
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: parrots in particular the only one smart enough to mimic humans.
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: And one of the reason is that they do this
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: is they're able to manipulate their tongue, which is one
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: of the things that we do to produce speech. So
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: they're not just they're not just mimicking a sound like,
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: they're actually forming words very similarly to how humans do. UM.
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: They are also capable of hitting like pitches, lower pitches
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: that are more in step with how human the human
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: voice sounds, so it sounds more like human that they're mimicking.
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: But then also they seem to have an additional layer
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: um in their brain and the region of their brain
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: that they used to to mimic um that other animals
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: don't have that other birds don't have, which implies that
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: they're just smart enough to do this too. Yeah. So
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: I had a cockateal. Oh some pepper. Everybody had a
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: cockateal when I was a kid. I was like, I mean,
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: I feel like we had this bird for a few years,
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: but I was definitely in the you know, ten eleven
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: twelve year old range, and our little gray cockateal was
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: named Dolly, and I, you know, knew that you could
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: teach cockatiels to say things. So I was, my brother
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: and I were all over this. You know, no one
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: else in the family really cared. But we got a
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: record to teach us how to do this. And it
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: involves tons and tons of repetition. You can't just go
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: up to a bird and teach it to say something
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: a couple of times and they'll do It. Requires a
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: lot of repetition, and so we taught. By the end,
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: Dolly could say hello and hello Dolly, and Dolly could
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: do the wolf whistle like uh oh yeah, like when
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: someone walked in the room, uh I. Dolly learned to
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: do the charge in it. And and then the one
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: I was most proud of is I taught Dolly to
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: do the co co co co like a jungle bird.
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: And it was my favorite thing that Dolly could do.
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: So Dolly would sit on my shoulder and like kind
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: of nibble up my ear lobes and watch TV and
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: stuff and peck at my hair and that was sort
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: of the ex tent of it. It was a tremendous mess.
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: Uh And you know, we're I guess we can go
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: and talk about that. If you have a a bird,
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: it's it's feathers and poop and seeds everywhere. Yeah. Well,
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: because when you have a parrot, you're supposed to give
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: it a lot of time outside of the cage, which
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: we'll we'll talk a little more extensively about that. But yes,
• 36:21
  Speaker 1: they're a big mass for sure. But Dolly learning to
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: talk was one of the coolest things I did as
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: a kid. And people love to hear parrots say things.
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: They if you go and type parrot into YouTube. The
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: third thing that comes down is the next offering is
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: parrots cursing, because it's just funny. People want to see
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: a parrot tell someone to you know, buzz off. Yeah,
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: buzz off if you're lucky, if they haven't lived in
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: a frat house for a few years. Um, more often
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: than not, they just straight up curse. And every once
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: in a while you'll see a story about some parrots
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: that had to be moved from like a wild I've
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: preserved because they were cursing at like the people who
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: came by to see them or whatever, and teaching little
• 37:07
  Speaker 1: kids bad manners. I mean, they're all kinds of videos.
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: It's it's very fun. Kids. Ask your parents if you
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: can watch parrot talking videos, because some of them curse.
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: Uh if there are some funny ones too with parrots
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: and alexis um talking to Alexa, and I think one
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: of them that was a parrot that the lady um,
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: the owner went back and ordered or was checking on
• 37:29
  Speaker 1: things that were ordered, because this parrot would order stuff. Yeah,
• 37:33
  Speaker 1: and the parrot kept trying to order a fart shopping
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: I don't know. I mean she just said what's on
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: the shopping list? And Alexa said, bird seed fart, Right,
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: that's pretty great. I want to know what Alexa would
• 37:48
  Speaker 1: would imagine that to be well, I mean, if I
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: think if you say to burp or fart they'll do it, right.
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: I don't know. I haven't tried that, but I'm going
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: to write after this, do you really haven't. I haven't
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: very impressed. I'm forty four years old and I've never
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: tried that. Al Right, well I'm almost fifty, so you'll
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: come back around and think it's funny again. You know
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: what's funny, Chuck? You have mastered one of the I
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: think sixty things that the Kama Sutra says every person
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: should master before they die, and that is to train
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: a parrot to talk is one of them. Yeah, I
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: had no idea I ran across that. So, um, we
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: can't talk about parents, and especially talk about parent intelligence
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: and not talk about Alex the parrot, which who we
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: have talked about before he showed up in our How
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: Zero Works episode, because he's, as far as anyone knows,
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: the I think, if not the only bird, possibly the
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: only other non human animal who's demonstrated a grasp of
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: the concept of zero. Um, that's a really weird concept
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: that that most non humans can't grasp, or possibly any
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: other non humans can't grasp, Alex could, which kind of
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: goes to show you what a smart part he was. Yeah,
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: I think they figured in the end, Alex was about
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: as smart as a five year old person, and uh
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: not from like the depth of vocabulary. Alex knew about
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: a hundred words, which is sounds like a lot compared
• 39:18
  Speaker 1: to Dolly. But I think the Guinness record is a
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: parakeet named Puck who learned about sevent dred words and change,
• 39:26
  Speaker 1: so a hundred is good. But Alex could understand concepts
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: like bigger and smaller and same and different, and would
• 39:35
  Speaker 1: make up his own word combinations, like I think the
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: first time Alex a cake, Alex called it yummy bread,
• 39:43
  Speaker 1: which is really pretty astounding and can maybe kind of scary.
• 39:48
  Speaker 1: He supposedly is the first animal to ask an existential question,
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: which he saw himself in the mirror, and he asked
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: what color? And so his his handler and researcher I
• 40:01
  Speaker 1: Irene Pepperberg, who wrote many, many papers from the seventies
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: to the early two thousands. UM about Alex, whose name
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: it turns out as an acronym for Avian language experiment.
• 40:12
  Speaker 1: It's a little saddened by that, you know, like the
• 40:15
  Speaker 1: robot whose name is like an acronym for someone science
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: E just kind of dehumanizing. UM. But Alex. Um, he
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: he asked like what color, and they took it to
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: mean like he was asking about himself, like he he
• 40:29
  Speaker 1: recognized himself in the mirror. And apparently parrots frequently talk
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: about themselves in third person, like that that parrot or
• 40:37
  Speaker 1: that para. Keep Puck hell right right, who held the
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: record for the most words, Um, he talked about himself
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: in third person. And apparently he once said it's Christmas
• 40:52
  Speaker 1: and that he was happy about it being Christmas, and
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: Puck loved everybody. That's great, Yeah, but I mean it's like,
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: that's pretty intelligent. If this parrot understands what that it's
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: Christmas day and everybody's happy that he loves everybody, it's
• 41:07
  Speaker 1: a I'm I'm just impressed with parrots. In addition to
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: being cute, they also have brains, brains and looks. That's right,
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: So I think we gotta at least talk about the
• 41:17
  Speaker 1: notion of pirates having parrots. Uh. It is not necessarily
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: just a movie trope or a book trope from literature.
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: It makes sense in a way. Um, they may have
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: wanted when they're out at sea some companionship having a
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: dog or a cat or a goat, or a lamb
• 41:37
  Speaker 1: following you around on a ship isn't a great idea?
• 41:40
  Speaker 1: Like a bird kind of makes sense. And they could
• 41:42
  Speaker 1: eat the hard attack and the crackers and and sip
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: on the rum, and it makes sense to have birds.
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: They were they were they were going places where they
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: might have been. Like I don't know if there's any
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: hard evidence, but nothing about it seems like there's no
• 41:57
  Speaker 1: way that could have been true. No, what what I
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: saw is that, um, that that's possibly the case, but
• 42:03
  Speaker 1: that the Age of Discovery was at the second time
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: that Europe fell in love with parrots as pets, and
• 42:09
  Speaker 1: that the initial trend started when Alexander the Great invaded
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: India and took some parrots back to Greece with them,
• 42:17
  Speaker 1: and they ended up spreading to Europe. And actually the
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: Alexandrine parrot is named after Alexander the Great because it's
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: apparently one of the ones that he brought back with them.
• 42:26
  Speaker 1: And then parents just I guess fell out of fashion.
• 42:28
  Speaker 1: And uh, then when people started going to like Brazil,
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: and and coming back from Brazil, they came back with
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: parrots on their shoulders and the trend started again. I
• 42:37
  Speaker 1: love it. I did mention that they were. They're not
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: the easiest pet to take care of, the air messy.
• 42:43
  Speaker 1: They are demanding, they're pretty needy. They need lots of attention.
• 42:48
  Speaker 1: If they don't get it, they can be kind of
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: disruptive and destructive. Uh, not trying to talk anyone out
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: of getting a bird, but it's a lot too lots
• 42:56
  Speaker 1: to bite off if you've never had one. Yeah, no,
• 42:59
  Speaker 1: it's I mean, like even even more of a commitment.
• 43:01
  Speaker 1: I would think then, say, like getting a dog, not
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: just because of the enormous amounts of attention that they
• 43:07
  Speaker 1: need from you, but they're really long lived too, Like
• 43:10
  Speaker 1: that's the deal. Much longer lived than than a dog
• 43:14
  Speaker 1: or a cat. Like like in in the wild, parrots
• 43:17
  Speaker 1: typically lived maybe thirty years. I think the the Cuca
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: po cuca po um lives possibly ninety years in the wild.
• 43:26
  Speaker 1: But in captivity parrots really live for a long time.
• 43:30
  Speaker 1: Um forty fifty sixty years. There was a major Mitchell's
• 43:34
  Speaker 1: cockatoon named Cookie. That's the oldest living documented parrot in captivity. Uh.
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: He lived to eighty three. I think, yeah, like you,
• 43:44
  Speaker 1: you often see parrots and people's wills because you have
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: to pass them along to somebody and yeah, for the
• 43:51
  Speaker 1: life of me Ida. I don't know what happened to Dolly.
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: We had Dolly for a few years. It's just kind
• 43:56
  Speaker 1: of one of those things when you're a kids sometimes
• 43:57
  Speaker 1: you have pets that just go away and your parents
• 43:59
  Speaker 1: are like, they're on the farm now, They're like Dolly,
• 44:01
  Speaker 1: who stop asking questions. Let's never speak of Dolly again.
• 44:06
  Speaker 1: Dolly may have gotten out, I don't know, but that happens.
• 44:10
  Speaker 1: I mean, they they escape sometimes. Um. I mean, Umey's
• 44:13
  Speaker 1: grandma's parent outlived her and they went to live with
• 44:17
  Speaker 1: one of her friends who keeps birds. So yeah, I mean,
• 44:20
  Speaker 1: like they're really long lived pets. But part of the
• 44:24
  Speaker 1: reason why they think that there are or why they
• 44:26
  Speaker 1: know there are feral parrot populations around the United States
• 44:30
  Speaker 1: is because people people just let them go. They're like,
• 44:34
  Speaker 1: I can't I had no idea what I was getting into.
• 44:37
  Speaker 1: Just fly free parrot. I'm sorry that we ever met.
• 44:41
  Speaker 1: It's like flushing that baby python down the toilet a
• 44:44
  Speaker 1: little bit, a lot bit actually, um. But the thing
• 44:47
  Speaker 1: is is it's kind of so it's it's good on
• 44:51
  Speaker 1: the one hand that that just doesn't automatically like kill
• 44:53
  Speaker 1: the parrot that they can Actually they might find like
• 44:55
  Speaker 1: a local population that they can join. They might find
• 44:58
  Speaker 1: another one and star to local population as a breeding pair. Um,
• 45:03
  Speaker 1: it's not like a death sentence to parrots, like you
• 45:05
  Speaker 1: should never you know, just release your pet into the wild.
• 45:08
  Speaker 1: That's that's just bad juju. But um, if you do
• 45:11
  Speaker 1: with the parrot, it's not It's not a death sentence,
• 45:14
  Speaker 1: is what I'm saying. One of the bigger problems of
• 45:17
  Speaker 1: that is that you have still placed to demand on
• 45:22
  Speaker 1: the bird market. Yes, and the bird market is not
• 45:26
  Speaker 1: like there's not some nice family in you know, the
• 45:30
  Speaker 1: central rural part of your state that breeds parrots, and
• 45:32
  Speaker 1: that's where all the parrots come from. The parrots that
• 45:35
  Speaker 1: you get typically have been stolen from a nest in
• 45:39
  Speaker 1: Brazil and brought to the United States. I saw something
• 45:43
  Speaker 1: like eight hundred thousand parrot chicks a year are removed
• 45:47
  Speaker 1: from nests to feed the demand of the exotic bird market. Um,
• 45:53
  Speaker 1: and a lot of them don't survive. They die on
• 45:55
  Speaker 1: the way. And as I was saying before, the reproductive
• 45:58
  Speaker 1: rate of parrots is low enough that once you get
• 46:01
  Speaker 1: enough chicks removed from their native habitats, they're not getting
• 46:05
  Speaker 1: replaced fast enough, and then that leads to a collapse
• 46:08
  Speaker 1: of the population and it can mean extinction if that
• 46:11
  Speaker 1: happens across the large enough range. Yeah, and there are
• 46:14
  Speaker 1: plenty of countries, including the United States, that have done
• 46:17
  Speaker 1: past legislation to try and put a dent in like
• 46:19
  Speaker 1: this importing and poaching and stuff. But at the beginning
• 46:24
  Speaker 1: of this year, there was a study in Global Change
• 46:26
  Speaker 1: Biology that said that a third apparent species are threatened
• 46:30
  Speaker 1: with extinction. I think a hundred and seventy one of
• 46:35
  Speaker 1: the species are near threatened or critically endangered. The cacapa
• 46:40
  Speaker 1: that you talked about, you mentioned that they're along like
• 46:42
  Speaker 1: a hundred and fifty of those left. Yeah, you really
• 46:44
  Speaker 1: don't want the cacapa to go extinct. Luckily, they're new
• 46:47
  Speaker 1: in New Zealand and New Zealand loves nature, so they're
• 46:50
  Speaker 1: in a good spot. Yeah, that's true. That's a good point.
• 46:53
  Speaker 1: Are they trying to breed them? At least? I think
• 46:55
  Speaker 1: they're protecting the heck out of them and they're just
• 46:57
  Speaker 1: leaving them to breed amongst themselves. They live on three
• 47:01
  Speaker 1: isolated remote islands that don't have any introduced predators, so
• 47:05
  Speaker 1: they they're they're they're in a precarious place, but they're
• 47:08
  Speaker 1: in about as good a place as they could be
• 47:10
  Speaker 1: for the precarious state there in. Yeah, and it's you know,
• 47:13
  Speaker 1: it's not just people poaching. It's uh, humans encroaching with
• 47:17
  Speaker 1: developments and you know, less and less natural habitat. It's obviously, uh,
• 47:22
  Speaker 1: you know, the repercussions of climate change. When things like
• 47:25
  Speaker 1: the Australian wildfires break out, it's a reduction of habitat
• 47:29
  Speaker 1: and the poaching that's kind of put a real dent
• 47:31
  Speaker 1: in the para population. Yeah, so they're saying, well, you know,
• 47:34
  Speaker 1: there's there's so they've actually identified some hot spots of
• 47:37
  Speaker 1: parent biodiversity around the world that said like, Okay, if
• 47:40
  Speaker 1: these places, if the governments in these places like move
• 47:43
  Speaker 1: to protect parrots, parrots are going to be okay. Um,
• 47:46
  Speaker 1: So like the northeastern Andes, the Atlantic forest that stretches
• 47:50
  Speaker 1: from Brazil Inland and Argentina and Paraguay. Um, if these
• 47:54
  Speaker 1: places can can protect the parrots, their parents should be fine.
• 47:58
  Speaker 1: So hopefully they will. And then the demand side, uh,
• 48:03
  Speaker 1: if Europe in Japan will kind of get over their
• 48:05
  Speaker 1: love of parrots or figure out a different way to
• 48:08
  Speaker 1: get parrots a more sustainable way than that would have
• 48:10
  Speaker 1: a big effect to Are they two of the biggest
• 48:13
  Speaker 1: defenders from what I saw, Yeah, because that act the
• 48:17
  Speaker 1: US pass cut poaching and half um from what I
• 48:20
  Speaker 1: could tell, So it was like a really big had
• 48:23
  Speaker 1: a big impact. But Europe in japan'ss continued on without
• 48:26
  Speaker 1: that kind of legislation. I think it's great, well, not
• 48:29
  Speaker 1: great for them, but great for us. Up with parrots, everybody,
• 48:32
  Speaker 1: And if you want to get a little pop of
• 48:35
  Speaker 1: joy out of your day, watch this one minute video
• 48:39
  Speaker 1: called bird Sings in Synchrony with piano. Incredible cute, three
• 48:44
  Speaker 1: exclamation points not incredibly cute. It is one of the
• 48:48
  Speaker 1: sweetest things I've seen in a while. And you'll be like, yep,
• 48:50
  Speaker 1: Josh's right. Birds can just be happy little souls. Yeah,
• 48:54
  Speaker 1: or bird's cursing that's one too. Uh. Are you got
• 48:57
  Speaker 1: anything else that? Nothing else? Well, parrots everybody, Like I said,
• 49:01
  Speaker 1: go wat some parrot videos and uh. In the meantime,
• 49:04
  Speaker 1: it's time for listening mail. I'm gonna call this plugging
• 49:09
  Speaker 1: another podcast. We don't often do this, and it's not
• 49:13
  Speaker 1: from professional envy or anything. It was just, uh, we
• 49:19
  Speaker 1: would be doing it all the time if we did
• 49:20
  Speaker 1: it too much. Yeah, nice one. Hey guys, my name
• 49:24
  Speaker 1: is vv goer g A you are. I've been listening
• 49:28
  Speaker 1: to your show for the past six years. My physiotherapist
• 49:31
  Speaker 1: working in the suburbs of Delhi, and part of my
• 49:34
  Speaker 1: job is provide domicillary care where I have uh to
• 49:39
  Speaker 1: go see my patients at their houses and therefore need
• 49:41
  Speaker 1: to drive every day. You're one of my favorite podcasts
• 49:43
  Speaker 1: to listen to, and I'll listen to you guys almost
• 49:45
  Speaker 1: every day when I am driving through the chaotic traffic.
• 49:48
  Speaker 1: It gave me some something worthwhile to listen to. It's
• 49:51
  Speaker 1: interesting and I like your humorous, humorous conversational style. I
• 49:55
  Speaker 1: wish after covid gets over, you would do a live
• 49:58
  Speaker 1: show in New Delhi someday. Man, how about that? Yeah,
• 50:02
  Speaker 1: maybe I think we could draw a crowd. I have
• 50:04
  Speaker 1: a crowd of one at least. Yeah, Vivik will be there.
• 50:08
  Speaker 1: I just want to know that someone is listening to
• 50:11
  Speaker 1: you guys every day from the other side of the globe,
• 50:13
  Speaker 1: and you inspired me to launch my own podcast. Uh
• 50:16
  Speaker 1: if you would flee shout out to Vivik Gower, physiotherapist,
• 50:21
  Speaker 1: podcast that is v I V E k g A.
• 50:23
  Speaker 1: You are a physiotherapist podcast. Although it's in English which
• 50:27
  Speaker 1: is Hindi and English, you guys will not understand the
• 50:30
  Speaker 1: majority of it L O L, but keep doing what
• 50:33
  Speaker 1: you're doing. Best Switches That is Vivik. Thanks a lot, Vavik,
• 50:38
  Speaker 1: and good luck on your podcast. That was very nice
• 50:41
  Speaker 1: of you to plug a chuck. Yeah, check it out
• 50:44
  Speaker 1: in English and we'll see you in New Delhi someday.
• 50:47
  Speaker 1: Don't know win, but someday sure. And if you want
• 50:50
  Speaker 1: to get in touch with this, like Vick did, you
• 50:52
  Speaker 1: can send us an email to Stuff Podcast at iHeart
• 50:56
  Speaker 1: radio dot com. Stuff you Should Know is a production
• 51:02
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• 51:05
  Speaker 1: visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
• 51:07
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