Parrots, after dogs and cats, are probably almost 'human', when treated with love and trained well, and make very popular pets, at least it seems so with the Spanish. Especially with the breed that can be trained to speak. Some of them do that brilliantly. I have met with a few and one was taught to say "Who is the naughty boy / girl then?" I am not kidding, the bird distinguished male and female and changed the word in his parody!! That's the only phrase he could say in English, the rest of his vocabulary was in Spanish. He belonged to a hotel-restaurant not far from my home. I am sure half the clients went there because of the parrot not the food, which in my opinion was rather average. When the owners divorced, the bird went away with the wife and, I can't say for the other customers, but I have never been back there again.
A few months ago, a little parrot, called Lola, made news for days being the cause of a severe dispute between neighbours, ending up with one family throwing stones up to the balcony of the other where the parrot was kept; apparently because Lola was repeating everything they said, or imitating noises and often insulted them. Before the stone throwing episode, there had been anonymous letters and parading of picket boards in front of the bird owner's house.
Similar incidents recalled by the locals that way back to the very old days, a writer assured that he had an uncle who tried to mate carrier or homing pigeons with a devilishly virile and garrulous parrot, hoping to create a new breed to transmit spoken messages!! True or not is debatable, but makes interesting anecdotes.
There had been on record 3 famous parrots, or rather, infamous, one was kept by a train station master. It imitated perfectly the whistle of the master, and sending the trains off all by himself whether it's time or not they were scheduled to go. Another belonged to the Bar Quimet in Barcelona, who used to confuse the drivers of the city tram cars doing exactly the same thing. A third one whistled to set off the number 36 and 52 buses, paid compliments to ladies and called men drunkards! All that was in the past decade.
Now, if you are interested in meeting another naughty parrot, he is in La Licorera, a wine and spirit store, in Taulat Street in Barcelona. He would happily chat to you if you buy something. If you don't, the owner declares that he's not responsible for whatever the parrot might say!
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