I have a parakeet named willow, She is 7 and loves to talk up a storm, she's very funny to listen to!

I had a cockatiel named "Porky" that a friend gave me. She was so spoiled, we always had her out of the cage in the house. She could say "hello porky, whatcha doing & come here". One time I had her on the counter & I was doing a few dishes. She tried to walk on the suds but I caught her before she went under. I had to rinse her off & after I did she wouldn't pay any attention to me for about 2 days. And I thought Princess carried a grudge.:rolleyes:

We moved in with my mom & Porky got very attached to my sister's bird "Tigger". He was also a cockatiel. When I moved out I decided to leave her because we kept reading about how depressed they could get from being separated after being so attached. I read the depression could lead to death so I left her there.

I don't think I would've ever got Princess if I still had her though, so I think it all happened for a reason. My mom has 4 cockatiels & one day she was giving them food when we were over. One of the birds got out & circled the living room a few times. My mom got it back in & closed the door. We look down & there is Princess sitting pretty at the cage!:eek::rolleyes: It was so funny & a reminder of why I can't have both under one roof.

At the present time I don't have any birds:(. However when my oldest stepson was still home he worked at the local pet store. Needless to say, many people don't realize the noise involved with birds. At one time we had 26 different birds here, from amazon's to lovebirds. We took time and found great homes for all of them. Many times I was in the grocery store or somewhere with an incubator full of baby birds to hand feed.

No pictures???? :(

Yes, cockatiels and even little parakeets can talk. but most do not. Thats why i mentioned that Baby Peep talks, its kinda unusual. My african grey has a huge vocabulary but thats just normal for a grey parrot. i never tried to teach any bird to talk, they just talk because they want to.
Theres alot of extra cleaning involved in having a bird. feathers and seeds all over, but i love them so much and so i really dont consider it extra work. there's alot of things to know in the care part. like its very important for them not to get a draft, they will die if they catch cold. and certain household fumes are toxic to them. i used to subscribe to birdtalk magazine and cagebird magazine for alot of years and learned alot from them.

We've had Rosebud, our green-winged macaw, for 16 years. We were told she was 3 when we got her, so she will quite likely outlive us.

Rosebud is wonderful and a pain, sort of like the problem child you just can't stop loving. We we naive when we got her and didn't do the research. We didn't know she'd outlive us. We didn't know green wings are the loudest of macaws. We didn't know that she'd scare the crap out of just about all our friends, making finding a pet-sitter difficult. She's sweet to my wife, tolerates me, but will bite just about anybody else -- unless they're a bird person who understands you have to be fearless around them.

Our honeymoon stage lasted about 10 years. She became part of the family and she could do no wrong. But the more time went on, we realized we weren't the best home for her. We live in a smallish home, and her screeches echo through the whole house. I have no doubt my hearing has suffered from her squawking.

It killed us to even think about rehoming, but we tried once. We went through the bird club and found what looked like the perfect, young family. We dropped her off in tears and called weekly, then monthly for six months. Each time they assured us she was a delight and a good fit in their home. We dropped off a couple care packages in that time but refrained from visiting her to make sure we didn't upset her. That killed us too.

But after about 6 months, we got a freaking email from the husband of the woman who adopted her for the family. He said "Pick her up tomorrow or she's going back to the bird club." Evidently, the only one she bonded with was their 12-year-old son, and he let her run around the house unsupervised. The husband says she raced up and broke his wife's toe. That was the last straw for them.

We picked her up the next day, and the woman hid in her bedroom and told her 12-year-old son to tell us she wasn't home.

It was a rocky homecoming. You could tell she was traumatized and wasn't the same bird. It took months for her old personality to return.

My wife wanted to look into rehoming immediately, but I said no. It was too traumatic on her, and our first attempt failed miserably. I'd rather put up with her than to put her through that again. She's family.

We do occasionally think of rehoming. If we could find an experienced, stable, young macaw person who could give her a better life than we can, we'd do it. But it's sort of like trying to rehome an aggressive pit bull. Unless you have the perfect owner, it's bound to fail.

Here are a few pictures of our girl. She's smart as a whip and has quite the vocabulary. My favorites are "Here kitty, kitty" and "That feels good" (when we bring her in the shower. :) )

Almost forgot. We also have a budgee -- Keoki!

Several years ago we were having a picnic in the backyard, and a guest came over and said "There's a parrot in the tree at work." So my wife and I raced the mile to our office and somehow found him hidden in a tall tree. We realized he wasn't a parrot but that he had no business being loose in Alaska. So my wife hopped up on my shoulders, reached over and scooped him up in a towel.

He's been a delight, and a much more practical bird for a small home. I think he must have 9 lives though. In addition to his initial rescue, he escaped once and flew several houses down. We were devastated, but were told to leave her cage open in the backyard. Sure enough, while we were at work, he returned to our yard -- and a magpie attacked him! The neighbor kid saw it, hopped the fence and rescued him, litterally pulling him out of the magpie's mouth. Unbelievably, he escaped serious injury. And he hasn't tried escaping again! ;)

Here's Keoki.

I love everyones bird tales!!! I have a cockatiel called Oscar who is about 18 years old I have had in from a couple of moths old and he is so noisy and hates me , much prefers my husband :( He used to have a friend Tina but the never really bonded and Tina died due to constantly laying eggs ,eventually it took a toll on her and we lost her.:
Oscar used to say good morning , pretty boy and did a really good wolf whistle but as he got older he just seems to be happy singing little chirpy songs to himself and sceeching to alert the dogs of anying incoming cars that come to the house , he seems to know the sound of my car, my husbands car ,and my dad's car and he starts the alert for the dogs to kick off as we arrive!!LOL
Alfie hates Oscar with a passion and gets so annoyed when I talk to him. Lottie could not care less she just ignores him.
I think that Oscar likes the dogs as he misses them when they are out and about.

Hi Julie! :)

Eddie, Jillie and Rusty get along fine with Rosebud. They mostly just leave each other alone. We had a funny interaction one time when we used to own a chihuahua. RB was on Kelly's lap, and the chi jumped up there too. RB looked at the chi and said, clear as a bell, "No." The chi's ears perked up but he didn't move. So RB said it again, "No!" The chi took off running!

I just recently had a parakeet & a cockateil given to me. They whistle but the talking is limited & not easily understood...LOL Buddy , the cockateil will whistle & call the dog. Tries to whistle the Andy Griffith song......but gets it a little mixed up. Love to listen to them chirp especially when it is nice enoughn I can put their cages out on the porch........

I love hearing everyone's bird stories! Makes me almost want one!
When I was a kid, I had two parakeet's. A green boy and a blue girl.
One day the girl got out of the cage and my husky jumped up and that was the end for her. The next morning the boy was dead too. I guess he died of a broken heart. :( Mine never talked though but I remember that they could be pretty noisy.....

My family has had our Sun Conure Frisco for about 13 years now I think. We have had her so long.

We got her from my aunt who had a quaker named Hootie. She was given Frisco and Hootie stopped talking when she got Frisco, so she was trying to find a new home for Frisco and my dad said we would take her. My aunt knew nothing about her when she got her. So when we got her for the first 5 or so years we thought she was a he. Til my older brother was petsitting for us and she laid an egg.

She has a love hate relationship with all our family. She used to really hate my brother. She would lunge at him though her cage and fly after him. Very funny for the rest of us. She now will tolerate him. She is a loud little bird too. You can hear her squawking from outside in the driveway. She doesn't really say anything but if you are next to her she whispers Frisco to you very cute. She can be a sweet little bird when she wants to be. I have watched her lure Sakura my yorkie over to her cage then squawk and scare Sakura to run away. That's my Frisco! :D

Great picture. What a pretty bird.

Mike that is so funny, Rosebud given the Chi a telling off!:D

Thanks! Frisco loves to be told she is a pretty bird! :D