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A Little Birdie Told Me - Page 2

© Joy Butler

Ryan has been around budgies for most of his life but began researching their communicative abilities when he discovered Victor, his blue parakeet, talking in context about six years ago. He spoke to the bird much the same way a parent would speak to a child, talking to him about everyday happenings around them and Victor showed extreme interest, eventually picking up bits of language, similar to the way children learn language. Ryan believes that birds who are strongly bonded with their guardians are more likely to try to communicate and may get discouraged if they do not receive enough attention to be understood. He explains that budgie thought and speech patterns are much faster than those of humans and that they develop their own accents, which make them hard to understand. However, recent changes in technology make it possible for him to record his birds digitally and analyze the recordings using digital audio software.

Ryan presents Victor's Chronicles as evidence that budgies experience many of the same feelings that humans do, including loneliness, jealousy, amusement, thoughtfulness, anger, worry, and peacefulness. Since Victor's death, he has been working with three other budgies who had already learned some speaking abilities from Victor. However, these birds did not go through the mimicry stage and their broken English, spoken with a budgie accent, is harder to understand.

With goals of gaining recognition for, and revealing parrot intelligence, Ryan founded The Budgie Research Group which consists of about 200 parrot guardians, animal intelligence enthusiasts, and researchers, who are submitting their own budgies' recordings for translation and posting on the site. A great deal more research and evidence will, no doubt, be needed before the idea of these human qualities in animals is widely accepted but it seems that the more we learn about animal intelligence, the more we see our shared humanity. It seems we all have a deep-rooted need to be understood and to interact with other living beings. Perhaps, in the Garden of Eden before the Fall, all animals spoke. Considering that they were created to be our companions and not our food (Gen 1:29) and that total peace reigned in this perfect world, why not perfect communication with the animals? No one knows for sure but it's certainly a thought to ponder.

Perhaps one day we will look into their minds and see them as not so different from ourselves. Surely, if we reach into their hearts and find our own longings, we will treat them with more respect. In the words of one little budgie, "They need to know me, to know me too."

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