Hello again everybody! I’m a bit bleary-eyed today as it’s been a little while since I had a good night’s sleep. ‘And why is that’ I hear you ask? Well, I’m afraid that it’s Lucy, the elderly labrador, who shares this kitchen with me. Because in recent weeks, Lucy has started to wake up in the middle of the night. And because she’s old, and quite needy, she starts to bark until one of the humans in the house gets out of bed to attend to her. It’s not that she needs to go out,

A couple of weeks ago, I confessed to having once stormed the dog bowl and to having eaten up all of the dogfood while our very elderly labrador passively looked on. And I know it was a rather shameful thing to have done, especially as Lucy’s now 99 in human years. But I have to tell you that I am definitely not the main culprit in the matter. Certainly not, because we still have a serial offender! You see, we have two free-range chickens wandering around the garden. And one

A lot of parrots like me think that humans look pretty much the same, -well, at least the majority of them. And they probably all think the same about Senegal Parrots. We wear feathers and they wear clothes. But every so often, I come across a human being that is totally different; maybe different in the way that they look, or different in the way they see the world. Or, as in Nick Vujicic’s case, different in both of these ways. Nick Vujicic was born in 1982, to Serbian immi

On the whole, I’m a very brave, bold bird. Very little phases me in life, and I’m afraid that I’ve even been known to chase a hungry Labrador away from its bowl so I could eat all of its food up myself. But before you all shout ‘shame!’ at me, I’d like to confess that there are a couple of things which will always press my ‘panic button.’ I have an inbuilt fear of birds of prey, and I get the ultimate heebie-jeebies if I catch sight of a snake! So, I wasn’t too happy when my

In my book which came out a few years ago, I wrote a piece about feathers. And that’s not very surprising given that I’m a very beautiful parrot! It was entitled: ‘Is a feather simply a feather, or is it really a work of art?’ And that’s because feathers really are quite amazing things. In fact, birds like me have seven different types, each of which serves a different purpose. For example, my durable, shaped wing feathers have an interlocking microstructure which allows me t

Credit: Wallpaper.com Things are beginning to happen out there in the natural world. Things that make me feel even more happy than usual! Because the trees are covered in blossom. Our local woodpigeon is busy building her nest in a thicket of buddleia. And best of all, the swallows have returned and are energetically darting backwards and forwards across our garden. Now, of course, I’m a domesticated bird so I don’t go through all of the bother of migrating. But I really take

Humans provide me with an endless source of entertainment. In fact, I find them rather comical because they like to believe that they are bright and intelligent and in control of everything, when in fact, the opposite is so often true. And their flaws and failings mean that they are certainly not the happiest of God’s creatures here on Earth. And I guess that we parrots simply have to put up with them and try to do our best to humour them. Parrots, on the other hand, are usua

Humans like to build their own flying machines because God never gave them their own set of wings. And not content with their metal ‘aeroplanes,’ they’ve even gone so far as build their own rockets and to launch them into space. In fact, right now, -even as I tap away on the keyboard with my beak, -there’s a bunch of humans up there on a mission to the moon. Well, I say each to their own. Personally, I wouldn’t be that bothered about making a half million-mile return trip to

Being the refined, cultured bird that I am, I’ve learnt to appreciate the finer things in life including bone china. And if I find a piece of bone china lying around in the kitchen, I usually give it a tap with my beak to see if it gives off a good ring. And I’ve come to learn that if I don’t get the ringing sound, it usually means that it has a chip or a crack somewhere. And here in the West, humans get quite upset if their china becomes imperfect or damaged. It’s a differen

My owner was recently walking alongside a large stone wall. ‘Nothing very interesting in that,’ you may think. The wall had probably stood there for countless decades and born witness to a great many storms and gales. But it wasn’t only the wall that represented a symbol of defiance. Barely noticeable was a tiny fern which had somehow managed to grow out from between a couple of the granite blocks. There it was, defying all the odds, and bringing to its barren world a small,

Up until last week, something very important had been missing from my life. Yes, -it had been missing for a very long time. And I don’t mean chillies or nuts, or my special ‘parrot treats.’ No, I’m referring to the sun. Parrots like me are extroverts; we need sunny days to feel at our best. But here in North Devon, the sun had all but disappeared. Instead, we had rain, day after day after day. In fact, some parts of Southwest England it rained for more than 50 consecutive d

It’s always very important for parrots to keep up their appearance. So, we spend a great deal of time rearranging our feathers in order to look our best. And of course, we have a few places that we can’t quite get to, so that’s when we help each other out with a spot of mutual preening. And I always like my human owner to look at his best, so if I spot some sort of blemish on him, I always try to rectify it. So, for example, if he has a plaster on his finger, or maybe a prot

Humans like to have their science and technology; in fact, they all too often believe that if they haven’t invented something, then it can’t possibly exist. So that they like to focus on their machines, their robots, their internet, their AI, their theories and their formulas. Meaning that a great many of them close their eyes to the possibility of miracles ever taking place. Instead, they like to have a logical explanation for everything around them, meaning that the whole p

Most humans expect me to fly when I want to get from ‘A’ to ‘B.’ And quite often, that’s exactly what I do; yes, I enjoy a spot of full-on zippy flying around the house, and I enjoy it even more when the humans duck as I part their hair. Yes, I can be just like a small, green feathered rocket. But there are also times when I like to go for a jolly good ‘parrot walkabout.’ I’ve been blessed with rather large feet which are great for stomping my way across a floor. And I’ve dev

Many years ago, when I was an unruly teenager, I used to have rough and tumbles on the floor with my owner’s pet labrador. Unfortunately, on one occasion, things got a bit out of hand. The labrador rolled over onto me, and I ended up with a broken femur. Fortunately, my owner took me to a specialist parrot vet. I joined a queue of assorted parrots in the waiting room, (which was adorned by a long string of parrot fairy lights). The vet, -a human of very few words, -soon ident

Parrots like me enjoy a regular routine. We don’t like change or variation in what we get used to. So, at night, when I’m quietly roosting, I like to hear the old family sounds both in and around my kitchen area. For example, the hum of the fridge. The quiet snores of our labrador stretched out in her comfy bed. And maybe the whooshing of water in the dishwasher as it gets towards the end of its cycle. Yes, when I hear these sounds, I know everything is right. I can tuck my b

We’re now into what I like to call ‘Fluffed-up February.’ It’s still rather chilly for parrots like me, but at least the days are getting longer, and it won’t be too long before some of my feathered friends begin to leave Africa and head north to spend their Summer with us. Yes, the skies will be criss-crossed as flocks of birds come and go, probably amassing a trillion wingbeats between them. Meanwhile, humans tend to go on shorter migrations which they like to call ‘holid

I always like to sleep with my beak tucked into my feathers on the highest perch I can find. And very nice and cosy it is too, as I gently rock myself off to sleep. Meanwhile, humans have to make their own artificial plumage called ‘nighties’ and ‘pyjamas,’ and because these aren’t as warm as feathers, they have to create a special roost on legs which they call ‘a bed.’ And the great drawback to this arrangement is that they have to sleep in exactly the same place every singl

It’s been particularly cold and frosty outside, and we’ve even had some snow lying on the ground. As a tropical parrot with roots in deepest Senegal, just the mere sight of it has made me fluff up all my feathers! Meanwhile, the bird feeders outside my window have never been busier. Entire squadrons of hungry birds come in every day to feast on sunflower kernels, suet cakes, fat balls and goodness knows what else. It’s a bit like ‘Picadilly Circus’ out there. These birds are

My owner’s son has more or less fledged. He’s currently studying down at Falmouth University and approaching the end of his three-year degree course. And of course, Falmouth is located in Cornwall which recently took the full brunt of Storm Goretti. When my owner heard that a ‘Red Warning’ had been issued meaning danger to life, he emailed his son telling him to stay safe indoors until Storm Goretti had passed. And even that bunch of beleaguered humans called ‘the UK Governme