Читать книгу Extreme Nature - Mark Carwardine - Страница 37

NAME	African grey parrot Psittacus erithacus
LOCATION	Central and West Africa
ABILITY	communicating with humans

© Jenny Pegg

African greys live in huge flocks that sweep through the rainforests foraging for fruit, nuts, seeds and herbs and constantly communicating with each other. In the wild, no one has been able to do more than categorise their calls as, for example, threat or making contact. These calls could, though, be far more meaningful and complex if the language skills of pet grey parrots are anything to go by – for African greys can be taught to understand and speak human language and may some day even be able to read words.

The most famous of these parrots (though several others have been making the news recently) is Alex, protégé of Dr Irene Pepperberg of Brandeis University in Massachusetts. Alex can identify the colours and shapes of objects and what they’re made of. He can, for instance, say, ‘four-corner wood square’ if that’s what he’s been shown. If he wants to be given something or to go somewhere, he only needs to ask. And he can actually make wisecracks and some rudimentary conversation.

One story Dr Pepperberg tells about him is how during a demonstration of his ability to identify alphabetic letters on cards, Alex would say ‘sssss’ for S, ‘shhh’ for SH, ‘tuh’ for T and so on and after each correct answer would ask for a nut. Since that would have slowed things down too much, Dr Pepperberg would say each time, ‘Good birdie, but later.’ Finally Alex looked at her, narrowed his eyes and said, ‘Want a nut. Nnn, uh, tuh.’