And this is a verrrrry short video of Tchako saying "Tchako."
Tuesday, December 4, 2007
Tchako
Tchako talks. His favorite word is "Tchako", which he sometimes repeats endlessly and lovingly; sometimes he sings it.
He always says "Bonjour" or "Bonjour ma soeur" when someone arrives, and "Ciao" when you leave. He imitates every bird call I've heard here.
Tchako was fun to have. He went home today. He did not learn the first measures of Handel's Halleluja chorus, which I was trying to teach him.
Part of the fun of having Tchako was hearing other people's parrot stories. One person said her uncle had a parrot in the hallway, near the phone (kids: homes used to have just one phone). The parrot could be heard saying: "Hello.... uh-huh... yeah, uh-huh... right... ok, bye!"
They're among the most intelligent animals. Read about them on wikipedia. They have long lifespans, around 60 years, so they're best living in a community, because if you're 30 or over when you get one, he will probably outlive you.
Here's a video of Tchako eating a piece of banana.
He likes to eat peanuts, cheese, the seeds inside green peppers, bananas, and carrots. He liked the coconut water I offered him. He did not like ginger or onion. When he doesn't want something you offer him, he takes it from you with his beak and immediately drops it. If he likes it, he takes it in his beak, settles on his right foot, then grabs the food with his left foot and nibbles at it with his beak.
This is a very short video of Tchako singing "wooHOO-hooooooo!" He is VERY cute.
I took videos of Tchako to show you guys, since you're all so enthusiastic about Tchako, which isn't weird because he really is quite adorable, but my camera is having senior moments. And the one good video I have with Tchako chattering away is too long to upload. I let it upload all night, and in the morning the computer was frozen and the video was not uploaded. And everything I'd first written about Tchako was lost. I'm trying again, but the short (2 second) clips my camera now takes before shutting down with a "battery discharged" message, don't have much of the sounds and sayings of this cute bird. I'll try anyway. Typical. I figure out how to get stuff from my camera to this blog, and the camera dies. If anyone wants to try to upload it for me, I could try to email it to you.
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5 comments:
I just Michael Crichton's "Next", an interesting book on gene therapy and patenting and transgenic animals, etc. One of the characters is a transgenic African Grey Parrot; he has human genes and so is extra extra intelligent. But also parrot-like so very funny.
Can you buy African Greys in Congo? Are they expensive?
You should get one for the residence. It could come with the house.
Fantastic bird! Looks like you got the photo and video posting thing down... nice! Do you have to give the bird back?
I really like this post. It's very funny and exciting. I love it when he goes: "Wooohooo...wooo!!" That is great. It's funny that you gave him ginger and onions it must be really spicy for his tong. I guess he might like sweet things only. Well I don't knwo that for sure, but your whole post was hilarious.
Great fun.
Thanks
J'aime Tchako.
Did Papa like him? His love of animals tends to be limited to mammals... I can just see him telling the "damn" bird to shut up. But I could be wrong.
No, Papa just loved Tchako. But the cat liked to tease him, and poor Tchako would screech and pitifully "fly" all around his cage, hitting his wings on the bars.
No, if someone gave me an African Grey, I would free him. I was often tempted to open Tchako's cage and take him out. His wings weren't clipped. I don't think the sisters would have liked me very much if I had.
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