OneMoreBird.com

Do Parrotlets Talk?
Jeff Rogers

Do parrotlets talk? It’s a bone of contention,
Discussed both on line and at every convention.
Some owners say “Yes!” and some owners say “No!”
And most of us just don’t know which way to go.

I’ve heard mine go peep and make a real funny sound
Like a card in a bike wheel that goes round and round.
A clickety sound that speeds so quickly by,
But I haven’t heard words and I can’t tell you why.

My friend has a green rump that says, “Hey there, boys”
But to me it just sounds like high frequency noise.
The rhythm is right, but that’s not the solution.
What the bird really needs is some more elocution.

I’ve heard that some parrotlets know one hundred words.
I’m sorry, but that seems just a little absurd.
Because one hundred words, ten times ten words in all
Just simply won’t fit in a parrot so small.

There’d be word overflow, overload on the brain
That would lead to the dreaded vocabulary strain,
A serious condition, quite dangerous, too.
Vowel pressure increases, A E I O and U.

Until, without warning, the unwanted occurs
And the parrotlet speaks with quite terrible slurs.
In an accent that’s Southern, and that’s simply the starter,
In its terminal phase, it sounds like Jimmy Carter.

So keep the debate going, don’t let it subside,
But at the same time let’s keep the margins quite wide.
What’s important is not if our parrotlets speak,
But the kisses we get from that cute little beak.