Beautiful as they are, I am not very fond of parrots. They're at best watched from a distance or in pictures like the one above.

For some reason, parrots actually freaks me out. I mean look at THAT face!!! Apart from its colourful feathers parrots have an absolutely grotesque face. I react the same way Ace Ventura did whenever he sees the albino bat.

When I was a kid I was constantly terrorized by a cockatoo that belongs to a neighbour at my grandparents. It was bad enough that my grandma don't approve of me running around the house (I was tied with a rope once..) because I was hyperactive. I couldn't go outside because that menacing cockatoo; it always seemed to me, bears a grudge on little children, and rears its ugly head and flapped it wings whenever I appeared at the front door!

Worse, it will say "Nak pergi mana tu??" -translated- "Where do you think you're going?" and then it will let out a loud squawk. The total weirdness and fear akin to kids fearing "IT" of Stephen King.

I mean some parrots are really large birds and that one was huge. I wonder if its still alive...I could plan revenge...? They have long life spans you know...documented up to 80 years. Many people make the mistake of keeping them as pets only to realize that caring for parrots are a very long term commitment.

All that aside, parrots are one of earth's beautifull and amazing creatures ('cept for d face of course!). They have long life spans and they pair up for life. Perhaps one of the most popular traits of these species are its ability to mimick speech. However, contrary to popular belief, this ability is not confined to parrots exclusively. Other species of birds were found to have this ability as well, like crows, for example.

There is one results of a study by Irene Pepperberg that suggests a high learning ability in an African Grey Parrot named Alex. It was trained to use words to identify objects, describe them, count them, and even answer complex questions such as "How many red squares?" with over 80% accuracy. Other scholars claim that parrots are only repeating words with no idea of their meanings and point to Pepperberg's results as being nothing but an expression of classical conditioning, or possibly a manifestation of the Clever Hans effect.

Parrots are many things; it symbolizes as well as make great pets. They can be trained to do parlour tricks and even predict one's fortune. Recently, I discovered that it could be a label to insult among other things. And when that happens, think of the good side of a parrot and gracefully admit it as a compliment. But, yeah...it's hard to do whenever you think of that Old Maid card and that face!