Speaking of that, its behavior listed at some of the linked articles on the main site seems to closely resemble that of a 4 or 5 year old child (ignoring the guardian's writing style):
The first toy was a sound-activated squirt gun. This toy sprayed water on Pepper whenever he screamed. After an initial period of silent astonishment at his human companion's sheer ingenuity, Pepper tested the toy thoroughly and grew to love it. Of course, Pepper's shrieks were rewarded so he screamed more than ever, although now, his frustration was tempered with long moments of soggy, shrieking delight.
"He started using it as a bird bath", admits Mr Gray, who originally designed this particular toy to quiet Pepper. He added: but "then he'd scream just to be squirted."
Another parrot that was studied closely for its intelligence was Alex the Parrot. There was evidence it understood the concept of zero and could put together words to describe objects it hadn't seen before:
"Alex understood the turn-taking of communication and often the syntax used in language.[10] He called an apple a "banerry", which Pepperberg thought to be a combination of "banana" and "cherry", two fruits he was more familiar with.[14]"
Alex also had a tendency to turn the tables on the researches by giving incorrect answers when it knew the correct one as well:
Once, Alex was given several different colored blocks (two red, three blue, and four green—similar to the picture above). Pepperberg asked him, "What color three?" expecting him to say blue. However, as Alex had been asked this question before, he seemed to have become bored. He answered "five!" This kept occurring until Pepperberg said "Fine, what color five?" Alex replied "none". This suggests that parrots, like children, get bored. Sometimes, Alex purposely answered the questions incorrectly, despite knowing the correct answer.[15]
Though it's only self-anecdotal, I put some old peanuts out a while ago for some birds or squirrels to eat and noticed that a pair of Blue Jays were usually grabbing them. I started putting the peanuts in different locations and would observe how they would react. At first, they would look for them around their usual spot and then they would search around the yard until they discovered where they were located now.
I was going to take it a step further and cover one in some way (like with a paper cup) and another next to it exposed see if they would spot both of them. However, they stopped coming around one day and couldn't take my amateur experiment any further. They also were very observant to if you were watching them as well. At least several times they decided not to grab the peanuts that were closer to the house and where I was watching them through the window most likely because they detected me.
I can never get enough information on nearly any random topic and lately that's been extended to birds. The past few years that I have been studying birds more closely, I've realized that we underestimate the intelligence and cleverness of many of them despite being probably the most common animal we see in the wild on a daily basis.
Don't own any, but just find them to be uniquely interesting animals for their odd behaviors and habits (such as why many birds end up pairing together for a number of years to raise offspring while most other animals do not), which I end up finding to be similar to many of the quirks that us humans also tend to share at times.
My family did have a budgie (parakeet) though when I was younger, but it was not my pet specifically and I didn't take a huge interest at the time.
I jump from topic to topic a lot, hyper focusing on it to suck up whatever useful information I can. History, programming, art, music, whatever. Just like many of us here, I just have a curious nature about nearly everything and want to find out what makes something do or act as it does :)
Since I started to take more interest in them, I realized how much more they happen to be around while running errands or just getting some exercise at the park. I guess if anything, they make me feel closer to nature when I'm surrounded by concrete and skyscrapers. Sort of an oasis in the middle of a desert if there's a metaphor for it.
Even the lowly house sparrow is more savvy than I used to believe. They've been observed making use automatic opening doors by triggering the sensors (http://elibrary.unm.edu/sora/Wilson/v103n04/p0725-p0726.pdf). After I read that, it made more sense how the sparrows at a nearby supermarket by me happen to find shelter inside its walls.
For anyone that just has a general interest or wants an informative introduction to birds, the BBC did a great series on them a while ago, narrated by David Attenborough (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Life_of_Birds). Can't say I like all birds, but I think they're a species that tends to be underestimated and taken for granted by us when compared to mammals for their intelligence and adaptability.
Birds and Squirrels are the easiest to do backyard "research" on/with. We did an experiment with jays where we put some nuts on a button which was a door bell, it would ding when they too k the nuts. Then we'd go out and set up an experiment on the porch. After about a week of this they'd ring the button when they wanted to be "experimented" with :-) One of the things I wondered was how much energy you could harvest from a squirrel. Basically training it to run in a wheel until the treat dropped. (the wheel being hooked to a generator to charge a battery). Then stretching out the treat drop until you reach the end of squirrel's patience.
