When human is the only who is considered to be able to use words to share thoughts, a mere bird doing the same thing is shocking undoubtedly. But this is not an ordinary bird, this is about African Gray Parrot.
This mesmerizing gray feathered bird with the capability to amass more than thousand words those human uses to communicate. They can use these words in the context of speaking around their surroundings.
This species have mental and emotional capacity of a 5 years old human child. This makes it more socialized and attached to the human of its surroundings. If it’s petted, change of ownership affects its behavior and it takes more attention and tends to be more sensitive than other species. The higher intellectuality helps it to acquire a huge sum of words and to use them while communicating with humans. The socializing trait makes it to help stranger birds of their species.
African Gray Parrot are of two types though they don’t have much distinctive features to differentiate. Whereas the Congo Gray Parrot has lighter gray feather with a black upper mandible, Timneh Gray Parrot has smaller built darker plumage with a horn-colored upper mandible. The female ones have longer necks with rounder heads and under tail with silver tipping.
The social species live in the rainforests of Central Africa. It is often seen flying in flocks of 30 amidst of treetops at the early evening. It lives on insects, fruits, barks and sometimes crops like corn. It’s strong beak and claws help it too tear apart hard fruit shells and also in defense. It shows great parental trait being attentive to the eggs, feeding the chicks and making strong nests together.
The socializing trait might seem attractive but it often causes threats to this special species. It makes the bird easier to catch. Illegal traders catch the adult birds luring them, pick the chicks from the nests.
The big trees are targeted to be made into log and that results habitat loss to the African Gray Parrots. Though many legal acts are taken to protect the rare species, this one is declared as endangered one by the International Union of Conservation of Nature in 2018.
