As the proud owner of an African Grey Timneh who is preening herself on my shoulder right now, I thought my bird was adept at impersonations. Her name is Junebug (June to her friends), and she does a spot on imitation of the percolator, Windows startup jingle, blender (not so pleasant), and our cockatiel's morning call. (She's only six months old, and is still learning English. She's very into babbling "Yeah" right now.) But June doesn't compare to this native Australian bird...
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There's a nice overview of recent work on animal cognition in the latest National Geographic.
Certain skills are considered key signs of higher mental abilities: good memory, a grasp of grammar and symbols, self-awareness, understanding others' motives, imitating others, and being creative. Bit by…
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Great link, loved the video. The chainsaw was awesome - I would think that bird could mimic human speech with ease.
Are you familiar with the stuttering research on song birds - it's pretty fascinating - you can teach them to stutter by playing them repeated sounds of birds stuttering. I no longer repeat sounds multiple times to my children when they mispronounce something..