Talking about talking parrots...

Looks like talking parrots have broken through into the mainstream media again, this time in an intelligent look and conversation about a Michael Dalton of Clearwater, FL and his 19-yr-old Green & Gold Macaw, the talkative Arielle.



You can read the entire article here: Is this parrot really talking?

Mr. Dalton has written a book (Another Kind of Mind: A Talking Bird Masters English) about Arielle's 6,000 word vocabulary and his related research, and has a detailed website on the subject at ParrotSpeech.com. Of course, I've written my own book about talking birds (Little Birdies! ) but I don't actually own one (though Noodles the Lovebird does manage to communicate remarkable effectively in her nippy, nonverbal way...), so I won't be scoring a cushy television interview anytime soon. But don't let that stop you: you can read excerpts here, listen to some readings here, and read the reviews here. Talking birds can be a lot more fun than many talking people (in your heart, you know that's true...).