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Non-fiction Creative Essay 2 · Non-fiction Creative Essay 3 · Non-fiction Creative Essay 4 · Non-fiction Creative Essay 5 · Non-fiction Creative Essay 6
Non-fiction Creative Essay 7 · Non-fiction Creative Essay 8 · Non-fiction Creative Essay 9 · Non-fiction Creative Essay 10 · Non-fiction Creative Essay 11
Sometimes I wonder if parrots in the pet shop should have warning labels affixed to their cages.
WARNING:
I am an eternal two-year old, and will remain so my entire natural life, which can be anywhere from 20 to 75 years.
If you DO NOT have the love, patience, understanding, and the time for a 2-year old for the next 20-75 years, PLEASE DO NOT TAKE ME HOME! I emotionally attach easily.
Birds are absolutely fascinating. Modern science believes that they are the descendants of the dinosaurs, which would make them the second oldest creatures on earth, insects being the oldest. When birds first emerge from the egg, their resemblance to tiny dinosaurs is astounding. Without feathers they closely resemble how science would like to think dinosaurs appeared when they were alive.
What's most fascinating about birds is their social order and their similarity to human social behavior. Observe the grackles on the UMBC campus in the trees of the University Center. Just like two or three-year olds you can sometimes hear and observe the constant bickering between them. For the most part their bickering and fighting is just like with children. This one doesn't like that one, and this one is standing too close to me, that one is staring at me, and so forth. Believe me the arguments are really that simple. Birds are extremely egotistical and self-centered. Allow me to explain.
It is well known that in order to have a well-behaved parrot that the first thing one does is clip its wings and never allow the bird to have a perch where it's higher than you. In a bird's infinite wisdom and self-centeredness, if the bird is higher than you are, the parrot is in a position of superiority and will behave as though they rule the roost. In order to prevent this behavior, all parrot trainers and bird psychologists (yes there are bird psychologists and I'm one of them) will tell you do not allow them to ever be higher than you or climb on your head, because it becomes difficult to correct the bird's behavior when you do.
Declaring myself as a "Bird Psychologist" does that mean I'm a "bird brain?" I don't know. Maybe I am. How did this interest of mine develop? I can't find a capstone moment that says, "Eureka! That's it! This is what led to my interest." When I was three if I was asked what I wanted to be when I grew up my response would have been, "I want to be an Astronaut." At age twelve my interest changed to being an Automotive Designer. So where does the bird interest come in?
There were always domestic birds in my house growing up, whether it was my father's pet, or my older sister's pet, or my younger sister's pet. My older brother and sister had a duck, the kind you used to get at Easter time back in the old days. The duck, Cuddles, and I grew up together. Our birthdays were different, but we were practically the same age. When I turned thirteen, she died at thirteen. There were just so many different birds and different varieties, I can't discuss them all for it would just create an entire novel discussing living with all of them.
When I was about six years old, the movie "The Birds" by Alfred Hitchcock, came out and my older sister begged and pleaded with my parents to take me to the movie. "Susan, I think Chris is just a little too young to be going to that movie, I think it's going to give him nightmares, you've seen the reviews." Despite my parent's objections they caved in to my sister's pleas and I was allowed to go. "What do I care if it's a scary movie... I'm getting to go out with my big sis...Big sis and me... Me and big sis...Haha!"
So off we went. Sue took good care of me that day. She answered all my stupid questions to my satisfaction, which kept me from being afraid.
"Sue, Sue, why are those birds attacking
everyone? What are they mad about?"
"Well do you remember when the people were
in the restaurant and the birds attacked?"
"Yes?"
"Someone asked for a chicken dinner. The birds
were mad that people were eating them."
"Oh."
"And remember when the lady had the two birds in
a cage and they were leaving the house?"
"Yes."
"They attacked them because they were mad that
their friends were in a cage, they wanted them to be free."
"Oh!" Does that mean the birds outside will
attack me? Does that mean Cuddles will attack me?"
"No the birds won't attack you. They aren't
mean. They just want to be our friends and to be treated better."
Maybe this is where my interest in birds kicked in. As a child I never had my very own bird. It wasn't till I was nineteen that someone gave me a parakeet that they brought home and decided that they couldn't care for it properly. Unfortunately, the parakeet wasn't around very long because I made the terrible mistake of leaving my door slightly ajar and I had left the bird free to roam around. My mother's cat, Sam, got him. I vowed never to have another bird unless I was going to see to its safety and well being.
I still can't connect the dots in how I developed an interest in birds. I have always enjoyed communing with nature. I just don't see engineering, statistics and the financial status of Wall Street as being the real world. I think it's just something that as humans we create. Some people refer to this as the "real world." I see it as an artificial world, for if something was to happen to us as a species and we ceased to exist, the animals, in particular the birds, would go on without us as though we never existed. In my mind, nature IS the "real world."
In essence, I think it's all of these things that drew me into developing a better understanding of birds and bird behavior, especially mental disorders. Domestic birds do develop mental disorders and for the most part, it's because of our own ignorance to their highly complex social order that we create the disorders. Many people get rid of parrots because many develop a habit of screaming. They scream because they are trying to get attention from the people in the household. Birds' including parrots are social creatures and see the members of the household as part of their flock. They need to be a central part of the family and like to be included in everything. When someone tells me they have a bird that incessantly screams, I usually find that either the owners are rarely home or the bird gets too much attention. Like two-year olds, parrots will also have a screaming fit when they don't get what they want. If parrots are overindulged, like toddlers, they become spoiled brats. "I want. I Want! I WANT!"
What seems to be fair balance for most birds is about two hours of attention daily. That for some of us can be a great deal of time and a huge commitment. They will compromise with you on this demand, which is good because as eternal two-year olds, it's almost impossible to stand two solid hours with them in one sitting. Twenty, thirty, forty-five or an hour with them is okay and they don't always have to have something to do. Sometimes, quality time for them is just sitting on your shoulder quietly while you read or watch TV.
Screaming is also social behavior. Screaming at a parrot never solves the problem you're trying to resolve, which is getting the parrot to shut up. It's similar to dealing with a class of three-year olds. Screaming or yelling tells the kids or the flock that this is a good time to make noise, so make all the noise you want. Instead, you need to do the complete opposite and be silent. To birds, especially a flock of birds, silence signals that there's danger. They will immediately become silent as though to say to each other, "Shhhhhhh! If we're real quiet maybe the danger won't notice us and go away."
Other mental disorders can be more severe, such as feather plucking or what is known as self-mutilation. Here I've found that in most cases the bird has tried the screaming stage with no response and in most cases, the poor bird has no toys in their cage. Birds have very active minds and need to have things to do in order to occupy their minds. They have an inherent need to play, just as toddlers do. Toddlers always have toys in their cribs, either hanging within reach or in the bottom of the crib to occupy their time and birds have the same need. Just like babies they enjoy a little downtime and the ability to do things on their own. Just as with toddlers, they will occupy themselves when given the chance.
I have had many birds in my life, so I have had a great deal of experience with domestic birds ranging from canaries to parakeets to cockatiels to parrots. Ryoko, my present parrot, a Green Cheek Conure and Katie a pied color cockatiel, who are a little younger than Tammie, have not yet learned how to express to me in bird terms what they want. Tammie, who was a white cockatiel, for whatever reason, had this skill highly mastered. She understood the meaning of such words as cookie, bath, and bed. Tammie could associate the sound of the English speech with the object or the action. If I asked her if she wanted a bath and she was willing, she would get excited. Her wings would spread out, and she would chirp loudly. Tammie would give me the same reaction when I said cookie or mentioned the word bed. She could associate the word with the act of being put into her cage, being covered and not being disturbed for a solid ten to twelve hours.
Tammie was also fascinating in the sense that she was the only parrot I had that would point to something she wanted. If there was an object on the table that was not within her reach and she wanted it, Tammie would make noise and look at the object or in essence, she'd point. The rest of my parrots have exhibited the behavior of two-year old human babies in the sense that anything within their reach is a toy for them. As with human babies they explore their world by putting everything in their mouths. Others would claim that this is merely a search for food, but from further observation this is how birds explore their world. They taste things with their tongues and test for hardness, softness and texture of objects by these means. As with human babies, the most attractive things to birds are things that are shiny, which again appeals to their keen sense of sight. I'm sure you've heard of the saying. "It's new, it will draw people like a flock of birds to something shiny." This is where the saying comes from.
From my observations, my conclusion is that birds posses human social behavior similar to human babies within the age group of eight months to two-years old. From my experience of having several parrots they all exhibit separation anxiety, as does an eight-month old baby. A human baby of this age will sometimes begin to cry the very moment the mother leaves the room. From the child's viewpoint, they have no concept of time, nor do they understand when you leave the room that you merely have gone to another room in the house in order to take care of something. As far as they are concerned you have left their lives forever which is a frightened experience especially when you rely on mom for all your social needs and physical needs.
Parrots exhibit the same behavior and usually start to scream when their companion leaves the room. The reason for this is definitely separation anxiety. The parrot has learned when you leave it may be a long time before you return such as when you go food shopping or go off to work. So from the parrot's point of view they are really not sure if this is one of those moments you're leaving for a long period of time or a short period of time. When I do leave the room, I find that the parrot's stress is reduced when I reassure them as I'm leaving the room by talking to them and also communicating with them by whistling back and forth from the other room. The result is instead of screaming the parrot calls me. If I take them with me they don't feel left out and feel as an equal because they are being allowed to travel with me as a bonding pair would in the wild. If you ever observe the behavior of cardinals you will find this is true. Where there is a male, the female is never far behind and you can hear her chirping in the background keeping track of her man.
My cockatiels Tammie and Katie would go so far as to walk across the floor to come find me. Tammie was even funnier in this respect when she was out of her cage. Her problem was that we had lived in several different homes so she had to adjust to each new home. In Philadelphia, she would just jump off the table and land on the carpet with a thud. I don't know why she did this because she did have a ladder that she knew full well how to go up and down on like a fireman. Maybe she was well educated in the subject of physics and determined this was a good way to practice the rule of conservation of energy. Once she landed, she would walk down a long hallway calling me, and if the bedroom door was cracked open, she would peer in to see if I was there. If I was there, she entered and would then climb up my leg as I was working on my computer.
As with human two-year olds, the best form of punishment for incorrect behavior with birds, especially biting, is to put them in their cage and cover them for fifteen to twenty minutes. For a toddler, I'd place them in their crib for fifteen to twenty minutes. Some people tell the bird, "Time Out!" I tell them, "No, you don't bite!" in an angry tone. I would do the same with a toddler in reprimanding them. As with babies, birds don't necessarily understand human speech, but they do understand the emotion behind the vocal sounds and they eventually associate that their behavior is why they are receiving the angry emotions from their beloved. As with human babies, birds quickly learn that it is the act of what they have done that has resulted in the response from you and that it does not get them what they want. Most of all what birds want is you and the ability to socialize with you, the same as toddlers. This simple separation from their companion gets them the complete opposite of what they want so they learn to associate their negative behavior with the negative response. Henceforth they learn not to behave as spoiled brats. As I said before, parrots are eternal two-year olds, no matter how you cut it, their emotions will never mature beyond that of a two-year old. Therefore, because of this and their egotistical self-centeredness, parrots will always test to see who's the boss. I found with age that they do learn, and the tests become less frequent, but as with a two-year old, they will always test the water to see if today is the day they can get away with something.
Most birds, as humans, mate for life and in understanding this, birds and human beings are quite selective in whom they choose to mate with. It's not unusual for a mate whether human or avian, to die soon after their spouse dies. Our claim is that the spouse died because of a broken heart. This is very true of birds because they do extend affection to each other. Usually in the afternoon after the morning ritual of foraging for food they have ample time for leisure. During this time they will tend to nap, perform personal preening and preening of their spouse as an exchange of affection.
My parrots all exhibited this behavior, but of course because birds are so egotistical that this exchange of affection must always be on their terms. This means that the bird decides when is a good time for touching them, plus how and where you can touch them. Birds also demonstrate their sense of autonomy and their own personal preferences. One of my cockatiels, Katie, would allow me to shape my index finger into a small circle and pull all the feathers on her neck, head and cheeks forward. It was funny because when it comes down to it they're all feathers and there's not really much else there, sort of like grabbing a Squoosh toy by the scruff of the neck. The neck is smaller than the diameter of a pencil. When I did this I would speak to her in a sweet voice, calling her my little sunshine girl because of her coloring when I pulled her feathers forward. With the feathers pulled forward like that she looked like a little sunrise because cockatiels have bright orange feathers on their cheeks as though they have permanent rouge. Now the thought in your mind is how did I possibly know that the bird enjoyed this behavior and my answer is because there was absolutely no struggle to get away. I could hold my finger in that position for a few fairly long moments at a time without a complaint from the bird and repeatedly perform the same ritual.
My current parrot, a Green Cheek Conure named Ryoko, loves to cuddle in the palm of my palm of my hand. Because she likes having her back stroked, she will perch on my thumb and I curl the rest of my fingers around her body. Ryoko then snuggles or pushes herself into the palm of my hand. If she's into it, she also allows me to stroke her cheeks very slowly and tenderly. Ryoko doesn't care for any rough stuff, which is the complete inverse of Katie. This is no different in humans. There are men and women whose intimate parts are quite sensitive and cannot tolerate any more than slow and gentle treatment, yet for other men and women, nothing but hard and fast will do. Birds, as humans are very quick to let you know when you're not doing it right. Okay, so most humans aren't so blatantly arrogant about it as to growl at you and take a nip out of your flesh as birds do. Most humans are subtler in letting their lover know what they want and what pleases them.
Eating is not only for the purpose of refueling oneself, but is also used as a time to socialize. Just as we go out to lunch or dinner with a spouse, or a group of friends, birds too will eat in flocks in order to socialize. I can't say whether birds have complex discussions at dinner as we do, but they sure do make enough noise when eating together which leads me to believe that some form of communication is going on.
Once when I was attending school at Drexel University in Philadelphia, PA I observed this behavior. Drexel was a city-based university and as such instead of having a decent cafeteria or luncheonettes in the area to eat at, we had several food trucks to eat from. These were not like the coffee trucks that pull into factory complexes, but were more like the large food trucks seen in the old movies of the thirties and forties. Being a city school we had our fair share of pigeons hanging around the trucks for an easy square meal.
One day I just happened to get to one of the trucks just before they were about to leave for the evening. The owners of the truck thought nothing of taking the uneaten lo mien that was cooked for the day and throwing it out on the street. I'm sure their thinking was that why not, after all, it's only food and it's biodegradable. The food chain will be sure to make it disappear. Disappear it did! The pigeons had a feeding frenzy on the plain, boiled lo mien. They all came down on the lo mien and began eating it as if they'd never eaten before in their lives.
The surprising part is that there was no fighting over the food. A bird would pick up a piece, chomp on it somewhat, and then fling it, not out of distaste, but evidently because they just don't like having it clinging to their beaks. Some of the birds were covered in lo mein, but they didn't care at all because they continued eating as one would eat and fling it on his or her neighbor. All the while they were making clucking noises or cooing like babies when they are content after having plenty to eat. It was very obvious to me that this was not simply eating for the sake of eating, but a sort of birdie dining at its very best.
My parrots have exhibited the same behavior at home. All of them have loved to share a bowl of spaghetti without sauce with me, or just about anything else I was eating. "Dad. Dad? Dad! Whatcha eating? Mmmmmm! My Favorite!" Soon as the food hit the table, it didn't matter which parrot it was, they'd run down my arm and would be the first one in the food. One of my cockatiels, Tammie, was the least picky of the bunch. She would eat about anything with me. She was so annoying that when I let her out, I had to fix up a little plate just for her. All of my parrots have exhibited a liking for certain tastes and just like lids they have their favorite foods. Tammie loved her spaghetti, milk, coffee, broccoli, cauliflower, peas, cake, ice cream, Chinese fortune cookies and of course popcorn. She didn't just nibble the stuff, but would devour it.
The most fun was a bowl of Cheerios. Tammie loved Cheerios. When she was real young, only two or three months old, I poured myself some Cheerios with milk without even thinking ahead of what might happen. Tammie came running down my arm, picked at the Cheerios from the side of the bowl for a moment until she discovered there was cold milk in it.
She did exactly what I wasn't anticipating. Tammie dove into the center of the bowl and began eating and taking a bath at the same time. Needless to say that didn't last long nor did I eat the bowl of Cheerios. That was the last time I made that mistake. Just like a kid, there were Cheerios everywhere and she was soaking wet from the milk.
Katie was picky about what we were eating, just like a lot of kids when they sit down to eat, but still liked the ability to partake in a meal with me. She too liked spaghetti, but would shy away from vegetables. I tried serving them all their own plates, but none of them would eat from them. They had to eat from the plate I was eating from because otherwise they didn't feel that they were taking part in the social ritual.
Ryoko's behavior is the first one to differ. She's more egotistical and insists that she eats first and not under any circumstances will she share. She gets very angry and expresses her anger by growling and chasing my hand or fork away letting me know, "I'm the boss around here and you're merely second in command. You'll eat once I've had my fill first." The way I have arrived at this conclusion that this is social behavior, is that if I keep them in their cages, when they see me eating, they will eat their regular bird food. Evidently they see me as the head bird and when I eat it must be time to eat. Ryoko, on the other hand loves her fruit whether it's peaches, apples, bananas, grapes, pineapple, or watermelon. Popcorn is the only exception that was the unanimous favorite with all the birds. That and spaghetti. I had to make a bowl of popcorn especially for them or I wasn't going to get any at all.
Something else I have observed with the grackles at UMBC during the summer is how the fledglings always associate the parents with food even when they are finally quite capable of feeding themselves. This behavior is more observed in older children say around ten years old. For some reason they always associate mom with food. A human child's favorite words are "Mom Mom? Mom!" "Yes darling..." "I'm hungry." Even long after suckling their mother's breast they associate mom with food. Okay, so it's not really the food even though they are probably hungry, it's the idea of regression back to a baby and that they associate food with nurturing from mom. The fledglings do the same thing in the summer time. It's obvious that they are quite capable of flight because they follow the parents whenever they may go. Every time the poor parent finds some food for himself or herself the fledgling starts chirping at the parent, opens their beak, and begins to flutter their wings. The fledgling is telling the parent, "Mom. Mom? Mom! I'm hungry." The reason I know this is this exactly the same behavior my Tammie exhibited when she was six weeks old and well into the eighth week, also Katie did the same thing from the egg until the eighth week. (Katie was my first baby bird that I kept from a bonding pair.)
Last but definitely not least of my observations is the two-year old and the telephone. When a parent receives an incoming call or makes an outgoing call have you ever noticed how the child decides that this is a good time to act up? It's not that the child has figured out that you're not able to reprimand them while you're on the telephone, actually the child is aware that they are not receiving your full attention. They become jealous because they are no longer the center of attention, henceforth in their self-centered world they are going to be sure to get your attention whether it's positive or negative. In the child's mind any attention is better than no attention at all. This behavior does not only occur while you're on the telephone, but just about anytime you are attempting to speak to someone other than them. Parrots exhibit the exact same behavior with their companions. If you attempt to speak to someone, whether in person or on the telephone, the parrot typically decides that this is a good time for a screaming fit. The reason for the screaming is the same as that as the two-year old child. They know full well from the tone of your voice and from the speed of the speech that you are not speaking to them. Bottom line, parrots get jealous just like human children and will do anything possible to distract your attention to them. As with the two-year old child, the parrot subscribes to the saying that, "Any kind of attention is better than no attention at all."
One day you may walk into a pet shop and when you begin to speak to one of the parrots don't be surprised if it responds, "I may be an eternal two-year old, but I will NOT wear diapers. No Way! I'm outta here"
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