What happens when captive talking birds, such as parrots and cockatoos, escape and return to the wild? They start teaching their new wild bird buddies some of the words they learned while hanging out with humans, including the naughty ones. Swearing parrots are nothing new. Parrots are mimics and when kept in captivity they often learn to repeat the words they hear, even the kind their human family didn’t intend for them to learn.
According to a report from Australia, previously captive and now wild parrots were most often heard saying “Hello cockie” and a George Carlin-like list of words you shouldn’t hear on television or in the treetops. (Polly want a @#$%ing cracker?) Read more at Treehugger.
Avian mimicry can be startling in other ways, such as their ability to mimic our music. Their repertoires vary from heavy metal. . .
. . .to Pavarotti. (Watch it all the way through to hear some of Eric the parrot’s best performances.)
Although parrots are the best-known mimics, vocal mimicry has been documented in many other bird species as well as in dolphins, elephants, orangutans, orcas, and seals. We still don’t know for certain why wild animals mimic their own kind, other species, and environmental sounds. The most plausible explanation is that mimicry between members of the same species is sometimes used to establish and maintain social bonds (by repeating the same vocalizations, they identify themselves as belonging to a pair or group). Other times mimicry seems to play a role in territorial strategies.
In captivity, animals like parrots probably repeat the sounds made by the other animals in the environment—humans, dogs, cats and other domesticated species—for the same reason: to establish bonds. As for why they learn to sing opera and heavy metal. . .maybe they just like music.
