Lion in Winter

Piers Morgan doesn't actually eat people does he?

zargof

I can't say for sure that he doesn't...

Lion in Winter

Well that's a high enough standard of proof for me. I mean, it seems to be acceptable for referenda, national policy, etc.

Ingles

This
http://www.theguardian.com/environme...e-castle-video

macliam

Somebody spent a LONG time talking to that crow!

Bu, then again, it IS Yorkshire.......

SultanOfSwing

I love crows and ravens, they're ridiculously smart by mammalian standards, never mind for birds.

Also, they can be quite rude (has a bad word in it):

BEVS

All the boys and the coach trapped in the cave have been rescued.

macliam

Great news - and a tribute to the sacrifice of those who were determined to save them.

caretaker

Old Ida told me that when she worked in the Royal Hotel in Strasbourg, Sask in the 1930's they had a parrot in the lobby that would talk to the patrons and was very popular. There was a big baseball tournament in town and the rooms were full of visiting players, and they gave the parrot some language lessons and the poor bird had to be moved into the kitchen and out of earshot of polite society.

SultanOfSwing

That is the problem with birds that mimic sounds - they don't really choose which sounds to mimic.

Not 100% related, but a mate of my dad's used to have a parrot that did a really convincing impression of the smoke alarm.

macliam

My sister had a friend with a Mynah bird. The friend was going away and asked my sister to look after it - and my sister agreed, not knowing the mess a bird that eats fruit can make ....

I visited her at the time (I was a kid, she's 12 years older) and was fascinated by the sounds the bird could mimic. Voices were easy, but metallic clangs, electrical whirrings, you name it, nor problem.

The party piece was the bird's audio description of the morning milk delivery. This consisted of the sound of the electric milk-float drawing up, the sound of bottles being removed from the crates on board, the sound of footsteps approaching the front door with the milkman whistling as he walked, the sound of FULL milkbottles being put down on a stone step, the sound of EMPTY bottles being picked up, the milkman, still whistling, on his way back to the milk-float, the empty bottles being returned to the crate on board and the milk-float moving off. Absolutely incredible ..... and it did the whole thing several times.

Then there's the mental picture of my Ma at Jersey zoo, insistently looking for the speaker that was supplying the sounds in the Mynah cage. That and my Da grinning and repeating "Up the Rebels!" over and over again to the bemused bird.......(stops to wipe eyes.....)

SultanOfSwing

Some birds can get really close with their sounds too. I've yet to run into a raven in the wild that I have heard mimic though but I'm 99% sure I heard some blue jays mimicking red-tailed hawks in and around our yard before.

Bahtatboy

I could watch this all day. (I don't know if it's cruel, but it sure is funny.)

macliam

Superb!! The original "Angry Bird"

I need a crest like that to add emphasis when I swear!

Ingles