My mom's parrot never talked but he could whistle and he would pick up different tunes, although sometimes he'd get them confused a bit. I taught him to whistle, Mary Had a Little Lamb, and he started whistling that but only memorized the first seven notes. I could never get him past that part of the song. Then I taught him, Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star, and before I knew it he was whistling seven notes of "Mary" and the first six or seven notes of "Twinkle". I called it his Mary Had a Little Star song. He would sit in his cage and whistle to the other birds and they would listen intently and sometimes squawk, but he could never really teach them to whistle along. I also once taught a wild mockingbird to whistle a tune. I heard several different bird songs all coming from the same tree, so I figured it was a Mockingbird. I started to whistle a made-up tune just to see what he would do. He stopped whistling for the duration of my song and then when I stopped, he started up again. He was running through his song-bank of bird tunes, doing every bird he'd ever heard and finally, he ran through his repertoire and then tacked my song on the end of his concert. He started over again and I danced a little jig. I knew that now there was at least one mockingbird out there who knew a human tune. He kept whistling and each time he got to the end, he'd put my song on there. It was the coolest thing ever. I can't help but wonder how many other Mockingbirds now sing my little tune because they heard it from that one bird.
I can't help but wonder how many other Mockingbirds now sing my little tune because they heard it from that one bird.
