Tiki is trying to talk more, plus I am teaching him to......

Lisa's Tiki · Post by **Lisa's Tiki** » Mon Sep 26, 2005 1:14 pm

Tiki has been trying his best to talk - It is really cute. First he just started out with a garbled Hello and now he has added Hello Tiki and Hello Baby in the past couple of days. He also said what sounded like Pretty Bird one time. All are still very garbled, but I can understand what he is trying to say. He has also mastered the wolf whistle as well and to my surprise he is MUCH more quite than my two cockatiels! It is funny, I will let him out of his cage and he will climb on top of it and talk to his shadow, but when I walk up to him and try and talk to him, he shuts up and just stares at me. He is a real love bug and climbs out of his cage and up the couch and will come and sit on my shoulder while I am watching TV. I have also almost mastered teaching him how to play birdie basketball. I bought a cute little basketball hoop at the dollar store and some small cat balls with bells in them (He LOVES to shake the balls and make the bells jingle) and I will give him a ball and when he actually gets it in the hoop, I give him a piece of banana chip.

Mikaela · Post by **Mikaela** » Mon Sep 26, 2005 2:46 pm

That is great!

How old is Tiki?

IMR4N · Post by **IMR4N** » Mon Sep 26, 2005 2:49 pm

That’s amazing I can hear Zazu chattering away I have heard him doing the wolf whistle and saying good parrot and what sounds like hello gorgeous. But as soon as I go to praise him or acknowledge this act he stops and climbs to the top of his stand or cage he also sort of dances when he tries to talk (dilates his pupils and a little drunk) does your bird do this??.

jen5239 · Post by **jen5239** » Mon Sep 26, 2005 4:50 pm

Hey Lisa,
Where did you get the tree limb cage top thing you have. The one that's in the video of Tiki pulling the ring off of it? That is so cool. And so is Tiki! I sure wish my Byndi would let me do all this fun stuff with him. One of these days, I hope. Congrats on teaching your Tiki to do all that cool stuff.

Jen & Byndi

Mikaela · Post by **Mikaela** » Mon Sep 26, 2005 6:02 pm

Peek-a-Boo speaks often and she always pins her eyes and fluffs her hearthers, especially on her head. She makes those stand straight up when she speaks.

Also when she is nervous AND happy so that gets confusing. It sometimes takes me a second to realize what she is feeling.

I know this is SO bad but I had to 'towel' her because she wouldnt get off of a surge protector she was enjoying chewing on. It took her almost a week to get over that. She wouldnt even look at me when I asked her to step up :cry:

Melika · Post by **Melika** » Tue Sep 27, 2005 1:30 am

That's great! It's fascinating what birds can learn. I still think there isn't any reason why they can't learn to read. Same way we learn, letters & phonics to form words. They can learn the names of objects, why not learn the 'names' of words? I'm not saying being able to read new sentences, but being able to identify familiar words when shown, like cat or dog.

IMR4N · Post by **IMR4N** » Tue Sep 27, 2005 6:25 am

You wana check out Alex the african grey. i think he can do something like that or is learning to do so.

Lisa's Tiki · Post by **Lisa's Tiki** » Tue Sep 27, 2005 8:38 am

Tiki will be 6 months old on the 4th. I tried this morning to get a video of him talking, but yet again, he would clam up as soon as I picked up the camera! :lol:

As for his tree top perch, I bought it off Ebay. I think I got really lucky though, because I think this is a rare find. I kept looking on Ebay almost every day and it took me about 2 months, but I finally found it. Someone had a Manzanite tree and they made bird toys, so I got this cage top perch along with two other toys for under $30 and that was with shipping!

Thanks for all the compliments on Tiki. I will not give up until I get a video of him talking and/or practicing playing basketball.