Friday Grey Matters
retrospectacle | December 1, 2006
Move over Judas Priest! Make way for HateBeak!
HateBeak is a ParrotMetal band with, you guessed it!, a African Grey as the lead "vocalist."
From HATEBEAK's site:
Face-crushing guitars, head-pounding drums, bass so low you'll vacate your bowels, and vocals so scorching, so extreme they simply can't be human! They're not. This death metal outfit with a parrot for a singer trashes the pathetic birdfeeder you call the metal underground!
That's correct, a parrot for a singer, savaging you with feathers of razored steel! This is not Jimmy Buffet's parrot - be warned! Try as one might, they will…
retrospectacle | November 24, 2006
African Grey Parrots are so loved, they've even been honored with stamps in many countries! The stamp on the upper left was a 3 cent stamp issued in Cuba in 1967, one of 15 in a collection of birds in the Havana Zoo. The lower right stamp is from Sierra Leone in Africa, issued in 1999. It was also part of a set of 20 stamps entitled 'Beautiful Parrots and Parakeets of the World.' I once collected stamps as a kid but quit after my precious collection was water-damaged beyond repair. However, these stamps are really beautiful, and I wish I had them!
Here's another sheet of parrot stamps with…
retrospectacle | November 20, 2006Today has been an exciting day for me! First of all, although Steven Pinker had to decline my invitation to speak at UM (during the Neuroscience Spring Symposium), he did agree to do an interview here on Retrospectacle. So, similar to the Q's and A's I posted for review for Irene Pepperberg, I will post some for Pinker in the next few days to get feedback.
And speaking of Dr. Pepperberg, guess who WILL be speaking at the Spring Symposium? That's right, my favorite parrot researcher, Irene herself! I can't wait to meet her and (hopefully) Alex.
As for the interview with Dr. Pepperberg, it…
retrospectacle | November 17, 2006
The wild bird trade, which is where exotic birds are trapped in their natural habitats and shipped away for pets, has devastated many types of parrot species. Thankfully this practice is now illegal in much of the world, however many parrot species have the unfortunate luck as to live in countries where these laws are enforced somewhat less that stringently. Up until now, African Greys have been spared this fate. However, recent data on their populations in the 23 countries in which they reside show their numbers rapidly on the decline. In fact, they may soon be added to the official 'red…
retrospectacle | November 16, 2006I'm about to send these questions out to Dr. Pepperberg (hopefully for next week's Grey Matters), and wanted some feedback. Also, please suggest questions if you have some!
Q. Initially your research background was not in comparative cognition and language. How did you become interested in this field?
Q: Human language processing and production relies on specific brain structures (Broca's and Wernicke's areas). Are there thought to be equivalent structures in the avian brain?
Q. Why might parrots have evolved to be such superior mimics, and how would this serve them well in the wild?
Q. Do…
retrospectacle | November 10, 2006
The natural world has been a-buzz lately with new things---new island, now a new parrot? Apparently an Australian bird enthusiast, John Young, has made the claim of discovering a new type of parrot, which he has named the blue-browed fig-parrot. The Queensland Environmental Minister Lindy Nelson-Carr (what a title!) has endorsed the claim as authentic despite no governmental experts having seen the bird or its nesting hole. Young has produced only a photograph of the parrot, and has refused to reveal the bird's location. This has produced some amount of speculation that the "discovery" is a…
retrospectacle | November 3, 2006
We've been talking a lot about life span here on ScienceBlogs, and on Retrospectacle. So, thought for this week's Grey Matters I'd talk a bit about the life span of African Grey parrots. In a nutshell, they live a long time--about 60-80 years. Although, there have been a few accounts of captive Greys living past 100 years of age! This fact is often a huge surprise to people looking into buying a Grey parrot, and should be weighed very heavily before making the jump to buy. Seriously, your getting a life partner more than a pet. Will you still want your bird when you are 70? (I know I will!)…
retrospectacle | October 6, 2006
This doesn't sound like the notorious Bird Flu, but an endangered species of parrot (Tasmania's orange-bellied parrot) are mysteriously dying of a unknown disease....possibly a herpes virus.
Birds at the Environment Department's breeding center near Hobart have been quarantined since January, when 46 young birds were killed by the disease.
Months of testing, in Australia and overseas, has not pinned down the cause.
Mark Holdsworth from the Parrot Recovery Program says the wild population does not appear to be affected.
"Wild population appears to be stable and we didn't detect any decline in…
retrospectacle | September 15, 2006
If you buy a parrot from a breeder in America, chances are it has a small metal ring around its leg. My African Grey, Pepper, also has one of these (I call it his "bling.") I'd never really given it a lot of thought, but have recently become curious as to why it is placed on a captive bird and what the code on it means.
A closed band appears to be a flat solid piece of metal wrapped around the bird's leg. It may have letters and numbers embossed in the surface. Most breeders eventually start banding the baby birds they raise. Banding is a good idea because it shows that the babies have been…
retrospectacle | September 8, 2006
What do you do when your pet African Grey parrot, which have a lifespan of 65-80 years, will likely out live you? Well, you have to make sure that it is provided for in your will, according to Dottie Kennedy, head of Rainbow Feathers bird club in southern Michigan.
"You have to be sure the bird's taken care of," said the Livonia [Michigan] resident. It's part of the message Kennedy and members of the Rainbow Feathers Bird Club deliver in educational programs they present at libraries, preschools, churches and in exchange for donations to fund the club's bird rescue program.
The club was…
retrospectacle | September 1, 2006This Grey Matters is just slightly off-topic, as this week's episode involves a macaw rather than an African Grey. But, I hope you find it interesting nonetheless!
Winston Churchill, the former Prime Minister of England, died in 1969 but (according to legend) was outlived by his pet parrot, Charlie. Many people in southeast England, where the bird resides in a zoo called Hansfield, insist that the 104 year old bird belonged to Churchill. Charlie often goes on anti-Nazi tirades, mimicking Churchill's voice and favorite profanities against Hilter and other WWII figures. It makes quite a story…
retrospectacle | August 25, 2006
The concept of "zero" is a tricky one, as it denotes an appreciation of what nothingness is. Although quite a few species have demonstrated a recognition of numbers (monkeys, pigeons, rats, dolphins, crows, lions, among others) and a few have demonstrated rudimentary counting skills (higher apes and Grey parrots), the extent to whether these same animals understand the concept of zero, or the lack of something, is a completely different question.
As mentioned in one of the first Grey Matters, research done by Dr. Irene Pepperberg has demonstrated that Alex the Grey parrot possesses the…
retrospectacle | August 18, 2006
First off, some exciting news for Grey Matters: Dr. Irene Pepperberg has agreed to do an interview for the series, likely in September.
Today's feature on Grey Matters is regarding the neural architecture underlying the learning and memorization of songs and sounds in birds. Hopefully it will help address a wide-spread, but fallacious notion that avian brains are too small and unsophisticated for complex learning and memory. Avian brains are not a primitive version of mammalian brains, but rather evolved in parallel under similar environmental conditions. The brain regions which process and…