I think for me it was the first parrot that I'd had hands on experience with. I was working in a pet store at the time and we had an African Grey in. I was fascinated. I'd already been working with smaller birds such as budges, finches, canaries, rosellas and kakarikis but the grey that was in really caught my eye. Whilst he was there we taught him to dance and say "hi". We would take him out of his cage on our lunch breaks to help socialise him before a family came along who wanted to buy him. It was sad to see him go.
That set in motion a lot of reading and research to see if a grey was the right fit for me... and whether I was the right fit for a grey.... and of course I ended up with Alfie. Weirdly, the talking was never really a massive selling point for me. I do love hearing Alfie talk but he's not a big talker... not compared to some.
The other parrot that caught my eye was an Eclectus called Reggie. We had him in from another store because they hadn't looked after him properly. We sorted his diet out, had him out on breaks and socialised him and he was such an awesome bird. If I were to ever get another bird I would seriously consider an eclectus if I decided against a second grey. His condition improved drastically in our care and he soon went home with a family after that. I missed him loads because I'd spent a lot of time with him on my breaks... he did like to try and steal my lunch instead of eating the healthy food I was offering him! 😂
Whilst I admire larger birds such as macaws, I know they wouldn't be a good fit for my home and lifestyle. I don't think I have enough space to fit a macaw as there wouldn't be enough space for them to fly/exercise enough. And then there's the noise and destruction too, which I imagine is much higher on the scale than with Alfie.
So I think for me it was the fact I was able to get some hands on experience with the smaller birds as well as the African Grey and Eclectus that came through the doors. I think I mostly admired their intelligence and how much information they took in from the humans around them. Whilst I do like watching smaller birds I don't think I'd ever keep them myself. Not saying they're not intelligent or interesting... the budgies in particular were escape artists. There's just something I admire about parrots and something that hooked me in all those years ago.