Grey Communications

[Nychsa]

Greetings Everyone!

 

What kind of experiences have you had communicating with your grey and realizing that they're speaking in context to you? Were you astounded by it?

 

This summer I had my first experience with Bella communicating with me in context and I know it just blew me away.

 

This week we had a new experience that equally astounded me:

 

She is very roudy in the morning - she likes to horse around and pay fight. She liks to sit on my shoulder and nip me in the neck. I don't appreciate that too much, so I usually just give her a finger nudge and say "ouch! sssht no, no, no!".

 

If she continues I make her get off my shoulder and I hold my finger up in front of her and say "no, no, no" and often I say "du, du, du, du" (from German - I used to say that to my kids when they did something wrong :laugh: )

 

Bella stared chanting those things back at the oddest times, so I thought to myself, 'hmm, she's not getting what the words mean'.

 

Well, for the past two days when she started horsing around with me, and I poked her in the belly she said "hey! ouch ouch ouch! no, no, no!!!" and if you even act like you're going to touch her tail, she spins around and says "NO! NO! NO!" :laugh:

 

I don't know, but I think she getst the words now!

 

Cheers!

Terri

[BaxtersMom]

That is so cute. I do think they know how to use their words in context. When our conure flies past or around Baxters cage he will get all excited and say "Come ere, Come ere" and my eclectus get louds a few times a day and squaks really loud and Baxter will tell him to "Shut Up" or "Knock it off". :laugh:

[Nychsa]

BaxtersMom wrote:

That is so cute. I do think they know how to use their words in context. When our conure flies past or around Baxters cage he will get all excited and say "Come ere, Come ere" and my eclectus get louds a few times a day and squaks really loud and Baxter will tell him to "Shut Up" or "Knock it off". :laugh:

 

:laugh: Baxter sounds like a character! How old is he again? I've been away for so long I forgot all the birdy data! :ohmy:

 

I'm trying VERY hard to ensure Bella and I are communicating because she's a handful and she keeps me busy trying to make sure she stays out of trouble! I'm thinking if I can communicate with her, we might just avoid some problems.

 

With her being flighted now, I'm trying to make sure she understands the absolute things she needs to stay away from - like the stove. Even if nothing is going on there, I try to demonstrate a good deal of excitement about the danger if she goes there. Unfortunately I'm getting the impression the more say "no", the more she tries to go for it :S

[Nychsa]

Ha! I finally caught Bella on the cam doing her 'whoopdeedo peakaboo' poetry! :woohoo:

 

http://www.mydeo.com/videorequest.asp?XID=43461&CID=239587

[BaxtersMom]

Oh, cute video. I heard her poetry. I like how she says the woopdeedo:laugh:

 

And Baxter is about 12-13 years old. His personality is 1/2 nosey gumpy old man barking orders (the controller) and a muscian that likes to whistle the blues. Atleast that's how he seems to me.

 

Bella is a doll:) and I think greys do communicate and some even ask for specific items I've heard. Not mine but I've read about so many other birds that even make special requests:laugh:

[Char]

Whisper knows what a scratch is. She lowers her head and says 'want a scratch".

 

Once when I was sitting at the computer with her on my shoulder, she climbed down my arm and onto my chest. stretched her neck so she could look me right in the eye as if she had something important to ask me. Looking me right in the eye she said "Are you a smart bird?"

 

I said yeah but not as smart as you. LOL.

[Luvparrots]

Bella is such a jewel, Terri. I luv to watch your videos. Thanks for sharing your magnificent grey with us!!

[Nychsa]

BaxtersMom wrote:

Oh, cute video. I heard her poetry. I like how she says the woopdeedo:laugh:

 

And Baxter is about 12-13 years old. His personality is 1/2 nosey gumpy old man barking orders (the controller) and a muscian that likes to whistle the blues. Atleast that's how he seems to me.

 

Bella is a doll:) and I think greys do communicate and some even ask for specific items I've heard. Not mine but I've read about so many other birds that even make special requests:laugh:

 

I love your description of Baxter! At what age did you get him?

[Nychsa]

That is too cut Char! How old is she?

[Nychsa]

luvparrots wrote:

Bella is such a jewel, Terri. I luv to watch your videos. Thanks for sharing your magnificent grey with us!!

 

my pleasure! I need to adjust the video a bit because she zips around so fast, the video has a bit of a timed delay in catching up with her and it freezes up a bit. Bella is always in some hurry - she's always got some business to take care of :blink:

[Lyric]

What a cute video! I love her little voice! That's just adorable.

[Char]

Nychsa wrote:

That is too cut Char! How old is she?

 

She turned 12 months as of Dec 1.

[Goralka08]

hahahaha that is so adorable!!! They're so silly sometimes!

 

Kenzie is still so new and not completely settled in yet, but everyday she amazes us! We shall see if she learns to speak in context, hopefully!

[danmcq]

Nice thread Nychsa. :-)

 

There is no doubt, that they KNOW what you are saying when it is a word or sentence you always use in context. They also know sounds, in context, phone rings, microwave wave beeps etc. They know that sound makes you come to it.

 

These Greys are immensely intelligent sentient beings that undeniably prove that critters think and make knowledge based decisions, regardless of what some of the old guard of the scientific community promulgated for eons.

 

The only difference between speech-able critters and the incapable, is they can tell you what their thinking or what they want in human language. Other critters do the same, but by body language or action.

 

Dr. Irene Pepperburgs book "Alex and Me" describes the hurdles she and other scientists had to overcome to even be taken the slightest serious by anyone for years.

 

I guess it's hard for scientists, that use critters for medical/drug tests and put them through unbelievable torture. To continue what they do, if they thought that critter actually knew that scientist was a monster and tormentor.

 

Thanks for starting this thread!! :-)

[Nychsa]

Lyric wrote:

What a cute video! I love her little voice! That's just adorable.

 

:laugh: Lyric - I think she picked up that voice from my granddaughter Haley when she stayed with us for a couple of weeks. Haley would spend hours with Bella. The would chatter non-stop at each other. :laugh:

[Nychsa]

Char wrote:

Nychsa wrote:

That is too cut Char! How old is she?

 

She turned 12 months as of Dec 1.

 

Awww, sounds like she's a smarty!

[Nychsa]

Goralka08 wrote:

hahahaha that is so adorable!!! They're so silly sometimes!

 

Kenzie is still so new and not completely settled in yet, but everyday she amazes us! We shall see if she learns to speak in context, hopefully!

 

 

I take it Kenzie just moved in with you? I've been away for a while, so I'm not up on the latest birdy news - forgive me!

[Nychsa]

Hiya Dan! I'm sure as we go along we'll hear a number of great stories on here around our babies conversing with us.

 

I understand why scientists mull this over again and again. I know I was wondering on several occasions if she was just repeating what I was saying or if she was actually communicating with me using human language. I think from observing her she goes through a process of putting things together - when I first say something relative to a situation, she balbbers it back and that is clearly not associating the words with the situation because she'll say those things totally out of context.

 

But the more often I say something relative to an event, that's when I can see her litl wheels turning and she's putting it together. I'd say it was after 3 days that she put the "ouch, ouch, ouch NO, NO, NO" in context with her tail. My pet sitter thinks it was sooner. I'm wondering if after a while they understand that most thing we say are in some context?

hmmmm

[danmcq]

Nychsa wrote:

I'm wondering if after a while they understand that most thing we say are in some context?

hmmmm

 

Yes, there is no doubt they do. They will use every sound, word and phrase they know when they are just sitting feeling good and start vocalizing everything they know as they perfect and calibrate these to near perfection.

 

Dayos knows when to say Make Coffee, Want a drink of water, Lets get some cereal...mmmmmm many more etc. at the correct time with a doubt being in the correct context.

 

The delay of a few days, as you mention in doing so, atleast in Dayos case, is he will not say the word or sentence until he has it calibrated. Once he says it, it's in the right context the first time.

 

Of course, this is all based on the premise that when I said something to Dayo from the beginning, it was always correctly associated with an item or action. I always ensure I say the same word or sentence everytime, so as not to confuse him.

 

Example: Everytime he would slip or fall from the time he was very young, I would always go "Woooo". Now everytime he slips or if one of the dogs comes in and startles him, he'll say "Woooo".

 

But, as I said, they will say things when they are playing or preening that are not relative to anything while they are just going crazy, playing or preening. :-)

[Nychsa]

Yep Dan, I think we're nailing down their process! :laugh: Bella will "practice" everything at sundown - she'll go through her entire vocabulary, often making variations on it, and to me, it seems she's doing it out of kicks and giggles because she likes the way it sounds. I have no idea who many variations of peak-a-boo she has now, but she just seems to like the tone of it.

 

She's starting to freak out the dogs a good deal now becaause she's picked up on the phrases they react to and she uses them with a very human voice! For example when I want to the dogs to pick up their dog food mess, I'll point to something and say "look, look". And the dogs will watch where I'm pointing to and pick it up. Well, guess who says "look look" and gets the dogs every time! :laugh: