It's widely believed that certain birds have a (wicked) sense of humour. A study shows that crows for example have the habit of waiting for unsuspecting humans to walk beneath the tree where they are perched on and then accurately drop acorns on their heads. When they hit their target, they apparently caw in delight, no doubt to draw their victim's attention to the fact that they've been punked. Some birds prefer pooping over throwing things at you, though! When you see a pigeon's butthole above you, you know you can't be safe.
What about budgies, though? These hardy little birds are not only very smart, but also really playful and eccentric. They love to make you laugh by doing all sorts of crazy things, like hanging upside down on a millet string or bouncing around on their perches. Did you ever see them sing and headbang at the same time?
When I observe my mum's budgies, I can sometimes tell that they are joking among each other, probably about us and the daily events in their own budgie culture. It's hard to tell for people who don't know budgies, but if you look closely enough, you will see the shining fun-lights in their eyes when they're uttering all kinds of happy twittering noises. Don't forget that budgies also want learn from humans and that includes our sense of humour, even though they don't get the full image of it.
According to Ryan Reynolds, owner of Victor the budgie, budgies have a natural trait of putting humour into almost everything they say. Much of his budgie's humour came from poking fun at his mate Betty or making wisecracks about people. He also thought the way people fart is hilarious and made quite a few jokes about that.
Do budgies make you laugh? Feel free to post your story here :-)
Victor was a very remarkable budgie, who apparently not just mimiced the words he heard but also understood the meaning of them. He made jokes (mostly when picking fun on his mate Betty) and played with words. According to his owner Reynolds, he started almost every recording with little rhymes. One of his storytelling accomplishments was a twelve part series where he talks about passing from this world and what the afterlife would be like. You can hear this story in his series called "Heavens Gate." It is possibly the most inspiring story ever told by a nonhuman being.
This budgie also seemed to do more than just mere talking. In the next video, Victor predicted his own death. He has also a message for the PETA so they will not think that he was abused in his life.
(if you think you will be scared, don't look at this)
In "Heavens Gate", he also spoke of a volcano in Mt. St. Helens that would devastate the world in the near future, sending ash and causing millions to flee.After that, he says that earthquakes will begin. He says that in the future, budgies will learn to speak and help the world by warning of future disasters.
I am safe in here, uh, huh. This part convince me God speak to budgie But he spoke there, like he has known Victor, parts of life Okay, now tell me what's above life! You will teach them all for talking budgie contest! They'll make this world for future, for people around. Poor Victor doubt Ryan. Ryan still hope in something but the beautiful vast don't believe in bible. Yeah. What's a blue budgie? Don't we believe we good to help like that? Ideally what's right? They're too often afraid to! You all seem to act stupid! Conduct your life! Work on stuff! A purge help it. I can arrange it. Don't put it off! Be new year, big volcano, not nuts Erupt ash on mill-ions! The ash will happen some day When it comes up you have right to know! Okay, take a look at... earth That produce death Causes earthquakes
Many people wonder what is true about this and what is not. Personally, I think that Victor was a very intelligent and talented budgie. I don't know if budgerigars are able to see in the future, but then again, for all I know it could be true. There are many sceptics who think the whole story about Victor is a hoax.
The internet is full of information about this case study. Here are some interesting links:
Many people believed Victor was the Einstein of parrots. Back then, the record holder of the "Most Proficient Talking Bird" was an African Grey parrot named Prudle. Victor mastered a vocabulary of at least 800 words, equal to the parrot's vocabulary, but he also seemed to know the meanings of the words.
Reynolds, owner of Victor: "Victor could speak and understand concepts the same as a human and it wasn't until several years after his death, that I began to really understand what he was saying. So you will often hear me asking Victor silly questions in the videos. I guess it was my way of couching him to talk, but little did I know what he was really saying. I would only catch about 5% of what he was saying in real time."
"I would often put myself in his place and ask how would I feel if I was in captivity and I had someone two hundred times bigger than me taking care of me? How would I feel about trusting someone, who was basically my captor. All budgies are born free by nature and part of their natural instinct is to do what they want to do. They do not like to be told what to do. They can become very close to humans, but they have to be treated fairly and with respect. Most importantly when it comes to talking and bonding with people, they can get discouraged very easily. Once they are discouraged you may never have a bonding type relationship that will facilitate them wanting to communicate with you."
Victor had only seen other budgies when he was still a baby. After 3 years, Reynolds got him a mate, Betty (she looks like a clearflight pied type, but I'm not sure). She was his mate for approximately 3 months before he died. During that time, she picked up much of his vocabulary. Her pronounciation is less good because she had a lot of contact with other budgies and spoke their language with them.
In this audio, Victor seems to be aware of the fact that Betty came from a pet store and wanted Reynolds to thank the pet store for her.
"Betty was even progressing faster than Victor, due to the training he gave her. Once he knew that Betty was learning from him, he said he wanted to start a budgie school. He was also proud and called himself her teacher. Victor believed that he had important things to teach people about budgies as well. That is one of the reasons he liked to be recorded. He wanted everyone to hear what he had to say. I believe one of his goals in life was to teach people how special budgies can be."
Victor is giving Betty his school lessons under the kitchen table.
In this audio, Victor is happy because Betty starts talking, which makes him a good teacher.
Victor was, like many budgies, bought at a pet store, at the age of 8 weeks. He lived from 1997 until 2001, and in those years he did the most remarkable things. Things that might send chills down your spine.
Ryan Reynolds awoke one morning on a holiday and looked over at his budgie, Victor, who looked back at Ryan and said, "Pretty Ryan, where's Onie?". It was at this moment when Victor commented on the empty bed beside Ryan normally occupied by his wife, Apollonia, that Ryan began to wonder if Victor was no bird brain.
"A year ago, he started to say things I hadn't taught him, and he was describing things I was doing", Ryan says.
Ryan Reynolds is a Canadian psittalinguist: a person who interpreters the language of the parrot family. His budgie Victor had a vocabulary of over 1,000 words, which he used in context. Basically this means that Victor knew well what he was talking about and not just mimicing human speech or talking gibberish.
Reynolds, founder of the Budgie Research Group, worked long and hard on the deconstruction of Victor's recordings. He later reached out to others with talking budgies, coining his work in the term Psittalinguistics. "A sensitive ear is crucial because budgies talk at a rate of 150-200 words a minute", he says. "It takes a lot of skill and concentration. Budgies have a particular way of pronouncing words. It's like picking up accents."
From left to right: talking budgies Betty (mate to Victor), Toovic, Topper, Amber
"This is going to sound crazy, but they talk about spiritual things: God, the afterlife, a better world for them", Reynolds says. Could this reflect the thought of a thousand generations of budgerigars who had to survive the harsch inland conditions of Australia for millions of years? Or is it the thought of budgerigars who are locked up all their life for the entertainment of mankind?
Reynolds says that Victor predicted a "tsunami on the South Bank of Asia" and warned of an upcoming "super volcano". Only a few years later In the weeks before he died, Victor said that God was coming to take him away.
"One thing I have learned is a budgies thinking process is many times faster than ours. By the time we analyze and process one thought, they may have processed several of their own. This is mainly due to their anatomy being so much smaller than ours. Because of this, their brain waves do not have to travel as far, therefore allowing them to process thoughts more quickly. Additionally, because the average life span of a budgie is around ten years, one hour to us would be equal to several hours for them. This is evident in the way Victor talked. He had to make a conscious effort to slow down so he could communicate with people. This also enabled him to learn much faster than we do. Victor began talking at less than one year old and he was only a little more than three when he died. During that time his mind had rose to a level of an adult person. This may seem hard to believe but he proved this in many of his later conversations and recordings."
Victor died several years ago, which makes it impossible for anyone else to study him. This is one of the reasons why some people suspect that Victor's ability was just a hoax set up by Reynolds. Is he just saying all those words to make his owner happy? Or is Reynolds really right about Victor, and many other talking budgies? Do they understand us? Do they somehow have the ability to see into the future? Or do they just feel certain things that we can't feel - like birds that stop singing right before an earthquake is about to take place? What do you think?
Here is already one recording of Victor:
More about this remarkable budgie in the next post.
