“Good morning” one of the directors said to me in the ladies room this morning.

“Goood Morning!” I sang back loudly.

Not surprisingly, she looked a little startled.

“Excuse me,” I said, “ I realize that was a little loud. I’m trying to teach my parrot to talk – that’s one of the phrases we’re working on and, er, it works better if you say things with a lot of expression. So I sometimes forget I’m not at home.”

“Oh, I see. Has she learned much?”

“Actually I think she’s going to be a good talker because they normally can’t talk til they’re about two, but she’s already picked up ‘peek-a-bird’ and ‘yeah!” I responded.

What I didn’t mention is how much parrot I’m learning. After all, humans are supposed to be able to learn a foreign language at any age. However, it’s possible that I just have a good teacher....

Senegals are quiet birds to begin with (with parrots you should read “quiet” as “there are lots of parrots louder than that!”) and parrots who are kept in quiet homes tend to be quieter than parrots kept in louder, more active homes. That last part makes sense – they don’t have to compete with so much noise to get attention. One of the reasons why I got a Senegal was because, as a group, they don’t usually develop screaming problems and their natural vocalizations can’t usually be heard in the next county.

But when I thought of “natural vocalizations” I thought of whistling and chirping. Kendi makes other complex sounds, which I assume might be normal for all Senegals, but I don’t know, because I can find almost nothing written on the subject. Almost anything you read about “parrots vocalizing” has to do with parrots learning human speech. Maybe nobody wants to document it if their bird is teaching them to talk…parrot.

It all started with my concern that Kendi feel comfortable coming out of her cage. I was really concerned about this –needlessly it turned out – because if I were a 9 inch long bird in a house with a 200 pound dog, a t.v., a radio, tons of windows and two people I’d be a little nervous. And really, the natural vocalizations of The Hub are loud enough to scare me now, even though he’s not that much bigger than I am.

When I’d put my hand out for Kendi to climb onto from her perch in her cage she’d lean forward, cock her head and go “click-click”. I could make the same soft noise by clicking my tongue against the back of my teeth, so I did. Then she’d climb onto my hand.

Okay, that was understandable to me. I guessed it was parrot for “hello” or “how are you”. It struck me that we, as social animals, don’t just go around grabbing each other – at least, not when we’re sober – it made sense to me that another social animal would have a protocol for a greeting before a social interaction that required trust. Besides, parrots are, really, wild animals. I’m asking a lot from her to be my companion. It wouldn’t kill me to show some respect, to be polite.

So, when this, and a series of other, much more complex clicking noises persisted, I listened and paid attention to see what I thought it was all about. For instance, if I get home late, when I take her out her cage I’m greeting with a series of clicks that sounds remarkably like mild scolding, as in “where-have-you-been? I’ve-been-worried!”

I can tell when she’s about ready for bed, make that ready for roost, by the frequency of her beak grinding – it sounds like a parrot grinding its teeth, if parrots had teeth. She also clicks quite a lot while we’re “allopreening” – that’s when I’m scratching her head and she’s trying to return the favor by chewing on my hair. (she must wonder why I have such weird feathers that don’t zip up properly) I don’t think I quite realized the extent to which I was “clicking back” at her, until one night The Hub asked “What ARE you two talking about?!?”

“Oh, I think she was saying ‘scratch me some more’ and ‘down a little’ and I was trying to say ‘is that the spot?’ and she was like ‘okay’ then ‘that feels good, thanks’ and then I tried to say, ‘why don’t you do my hair some?’ but I don’t think she understood me because you have to say it with your head dipped and I don’t think she can tell when I’m dipping my head ‘cause I’m laying down.”

“Good Lord” he muttered.

One night she went on with a series of complex clicks and whistles that lasted about a minute and a half –it sounded like a parrot dissertation. She was giving me a very earnest look when she did it. Alas, I had to tell her in English, “I’m sorry, K-bird, I didn’t get that”

She also sits on my shoulder and makes a very low whistling sound, almost too low to hear, which I’ve heard other bird people describe as “purring” and take as a contented companionship sound, which I think it is. But I also think there might be more to it than that. It’s more like a level of trust or level of relaxation thing.

Lest you think this all has no practical application at all, you should know that I have almost completely broken her of the habit of pinching the skin on my neck by doing almost exactly what she does if I accidentally scratch a sensitive feather sheaf. I make a little surprised “awk” sound and shake my whole body. I only had to do that twice to make her understand, whereas the whole “time out” business was going on for months (though that might have helped)

Still, I think I may lack the ability to ever reach the levels of speaking “advanced parrot”. I think that involves complex shaking of the tail feathers, which, alas, I don’t have.