The Parrot

The other day a friend of mine came on a visit and told me about this girl walking around in Oslo with her parrot on her shoulder. I got amazingly fascinated and taken by the thought of being a parrot-lady, a perfect companion and friend! On the other side, I would never get me a parrot only for show off. First and foremost I really do not like show-offers, and secondly (but even more important) I would never scarify another creature for pleasure. That being said, this parrot thing could really be my thing.

Whilst figuring this out I decided to find the bird, and find out why I felt I had to have it. What is the symbolic meaning of this bird that I would fancy. I started searching for pictures of parrots, to find out what kind of parrot I would like to have. I read about caring for, and how much time I really have to put into it if I decide to get one. I fell in love with the Congo African Grey.

picture from gotpetsonline.com, owner: Mike and Carol Bates, name: Graycie (wish I had your contact information so I could thank you for the picture...)

Experts regard this to be one of the most intelligent amongst birds. They can live up to 70 years in captivity, so when getting one, it most probably will be for life. The parrot is said to have the intelligence of a 4-6 year old child (depending on who you ask I guess..), about where my son is at the moment. The parrot will need a lot of stimulation and being together to avoid it getting bored and start overdoing its feather-work. (sources: Wikipedia.com and africancongogrey.com)

On the more symbolic side I found two legends connected to the Congo African Grey. The first one is said to be an traditional Yoruban (Nigerian area - Africa) legend. It is about God having a competition amongst birds who has the most beautiful feathers. All the other birds do all they can to make their feathers look perfect, but Odide did not do anything. All the birds envied the beautiful white feathers, and tried to ruin his chances in the competition with ashes and a magic spell to turn its tail feathers red. Odide entered the competition and won anyway, as true beauty comes from the inside.

The other one, also Yoruban, is about the gray parrot who corrected everybody's lies. It helped catching a big thief, but got killed for it. The thief was taken and the people got their things back, but the real hero in the story did not live to be appreciated.

The two stories tells me to remember to be myself, cause even though the people around me do not tolerate my beauty or my honesty I know that being me and being veracious will always be my two leading stars.

Here is the result. Some small adjustments maybe, but at least almost finnished.