Gabe has honored us (at least from his point of view) with his presence in our home since I finished hand-feeding him three years ago.

He is a yellow-naped amazon parrot who seems to believe he is the most beautiful, talented, intelligent creature ever created. Although he picks up phrases he "approves of" very quickly, he never repeats any negative words he hears regularly for screaming or getting into things.

He refers to himself as "Gabe," "Gabie," "Gabriel," "Pretty boy," "good boy," or his favorite, "Superbird!"

Once when I shut him in his cage to discipline him for strolling across the room and biting one of the dogs, he promptly turned on his perch and gave me the Bronx cheer. (My five year old daughter witnessed this and exclaimed excitedly, "Yea! I taught him how to spit!")

When I'm hand-feeding baby birds, I occasionally show one to Gabe and say to him, "See the baby?" His response is always sugary sweet: a long, drawn out "Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaw," and anyone would think he was incredibly gentle and tenderhearted. But let one of these helpless little ones try out their wings and land anywhere near Gabe, and he will show his true colors. Suddenly a crazed killer, it is only my lightning speed that prevents him from decapitating the baby.

Thankfully, some of the time Gabe's not hateful. Sometimes he's just smart. My teenage son, Scott, had a job for a month at a sawmill. A fellow worker came and picked him up each morning. On a few occasions, the boy came into the house and waited by the door while Scott put on his boots. After the sawmill work ended, the boy who had picked Scott up didn't come around for several weeks.

Then one day he came and knocked on the door. He asked me, "Is it okay if I get my gloves out of your truck?" (Having raised three teenagers, I did not find this strange.) I said sure. The young man had not come inside, but had made his request from the porch. As soon as I closed the door, Gabe called out, "Scott!" Remembering the boy's voice, Gabe knew who he normally came to see.

Gabe had never before said Scott's name, and he said it only once after that incident, several months later. Scott had moved into an apartment and had been gone for about a week. I was preparing to mop the dining room floor, and was moving chairs into the living room. As I set a chair down in front of Gabe's cage, with my face barely a foot from him, he leaned as close to me as he could and asked very quietly, "Where's Scott?" He seemed so human at that moment, it was eerie. I opened the cage, took him out and just held him.

While my oldest son and his wife, Holly, stayed with us for a few months, Holly often did the vacuuming. One day, in order to vacuum behind the stand Gabe's cage was on, she said to him, "Wanna go for a ride?" as she wheeled the stand a few feet across the floor. I had heard her say this to him on two occasions. Obviously, this was one of the phrases Gabe approves of, because the next time I did the vacuuming, he asked, "Wanna go for a ride?" Since then, he says it every time I vacuum, and any time his cage is moved.

Once I took him and his T-stand with me into the bathroom while I took a bath. My bath lasted about ten minutes, during which time I continuously repeated "I know that!" (He loves to cut in on others' conversations, so I thought it would be amusing if he learned it.)

When I finsihed my bath, I dressed, brought him into the living room, set him down and walked away. To my back and to my amazement, he said, just as plain as day, "I know that!" And he never said it again.

Gabe's story wouldn't be complete without Georgia. She is a 77 year old woman who moved in with us after her husband died two years ago. Last year, she bought her own mobil home and now lives just 50 yards from us. She comes over often, but not enough to suit Gabe. He will start out with a conversational, "Where's Georgia?" But he follows this with five minutes of calling her at the top of his air sacs. Georgia often tells visitors, "He's the one who knows my name." Knows it? He knows it, says it, chants it, sings it; quietly, loudly, with the accent on the first syllable, the second and tries hard for a third.

Since I met Georgia over ten years ago, I have loved her laugh. She has the most musical, no-holds-barred laugh I have ever heard. I am glad it's a sound Gabe happens to love, too. He copies it perfectly and often. We say, "Laugh like Georgia," and if he chooses to honor us, he does. We taught him "I love you" (original) and we taught him "Georgia," but it was eerie when Gabe started saying, "I love Georgia." No one ever taught him that and he does not normally combine his phrases or get them mixed up. It makes me a little jealous because he has never said, "I love Ma"... but I do know he does!

Gabe also has a sense of humor---a wicked one. My daughter-in-law was cuddling a 2-month-old, hand-feeding macaw I had just brought home. Suddenly the baby deposited a giant splat on her lap. Gabe, in his cage three feet away, peered at it, laughed sadistically and cheered, "Yea! Superbird!!"

When Gabe wants his head scratched, he'll start scratching it with his foot, repeating, "Right there," showing us exactly the right spot. That was easy to teach him. Whenever we scratched his head, we simply said those two words. I assumed it would be just as easy to teach him, "See my yellow?"

He was 14 months old and had finally gotten his first yellow feather on his nape. For months I repeated, "See my yellow?" every single time I scratched his head. Gabe now has a big beautiful patch of yellow, but has yet to say, "See my yellow?" Always, it is "Right there."

Recently, a visitor asked me, "Do you ever let him walk around on the floor?" I answered, "Not very often. He bites the dogs." Gabe, who is normally as interesting as a green bump on a log for anyone outside of the family, immediately broke in with "yeah..." followed by a hearty Georgia-laugh.

My daughter-in-law, who takes great pride in the fact that she taught Gabe "Wanna go for a ride?" is mortified when remind that she is also entitled to full credit for his snore. Unfortunately for Holly, this is the one thing Gabe is always more than willing to do for strangers, acquaintances, friends and family. All we need to do is ask, "Do you snore, Gabe?" Strangely, thus far, Holly is the only one who does not find his response exceptionally amusing.

When my five year old, Danielle, cries, Gabe copies her. Danielle finds this infuriating, which pleases Gabe very much.

When I put him on his T-stand, he will immediately yell, "Somersault!" Then he will promptly follow his own command and congratulate himself with, "Yea! Superbird! Good boy!" I am sorry to report that he does not tire of this. After it has gone far beyond the limits of monotony (for us), he must be moved to his other stand, where for some reason known only to him, he does not somersault.

Everybody likes Gabe and some of my friends delight in teaching him irritating habits. One morning, while I was trying to talk to a friend on the telephone, Gabe would not stop meowing. He went on and on, obviously enjoying this new sound. I mentioned to my friend, in case she might be able to hear me over his big mouth, that I had no idea where he had picked that up, and she started laughing. She told me, "While you were outside feeding dogs last night while I was over, I taught him that!" Although I am not fond of this particular form of mimicry, I couldn't help but be impressed that he had learned it in about five minutes.

Another friend likes to stand directly in front of Gabe and laugh in a loud, witchy cackle. It is obvious that Gabe especially likes this friend and is very interested in her voice. We say to him "Laugh like Sue" and sometimes he responds with her witch laugh, but never if Sue is here. Sue has about cackled herself sick to get Gabe to do it for her, but he hasn't yet and probably never will.

Trying to improve on Sue's choice of lessons, I told her I'd been working on teaching Gabe the first line of "Sing, Sing a Song." Sue loved the idea and enthusiastically sang it to Gabe over and over. Since I had been working with him on it for a couple of weeks, I was sure it was an exercise in futility, but I was thankful for anything that kept Sue's mind off the witch.

The next day, I heard Gabe quietly, imperfectly practicing "Sing---Singa Song." My heart melted for a second. Then, proud and selfish as I am, I wondered why it was Sue's voice that Gabe chose to copy, rather than mine. (Though I may be proud and selfish, I am no fool: I will not ask him why.) It appears that Sue will have to take my word that he sings it, ---he now has the first four words down pat---because he certainly won't prove it to her. Whenever Sue comes over, she spends an inordinate amount of time alternating between the cackle and the song. Gabe invariably sits quietly, listening.

I have read that yellow-napes are not normally shy and that it is not unusual for them to entertain strangers. Either Gabe has never read any such thing or he simply chooses to be unique, because whenever anyone comes to visit, Gabe makes me feel stupid. On second thought, it is my husband who makes me feel stupid. Ron will say something like, "Al, get Gabe to call Georgia." Or maybe "Al, get him to laugh." Rather than jump to the conclusion that my husband enjoys humiliating me in front of guests, I choose to believe that perhaps Ron has simply failed to notice that people are not all that impressed with a large green bird sitting on a perch, staring at the wall.

Sometimes Gabe is a little more entertaining in front of our guests: sometimes he actually faces us and peers at me intently as if wondering who I am.

An obedient wife, I always give Ron's requests my best shot....

Usually, I soon sense that my audience is about to go home, either out of boredom or to save me further humiliation. It is then that I feel especially thankful that wonderful Holly joined our family unit. I call upon my saving grace--my one ace in the hole. With a confident smile on my face and a gleam in my eye, I ask in a completely normal, quiet, conversational tone: "Do you snore, Gabe?"

Copyright © Alison
Published in Bird Talk magazine March, 1990, and Reprinted with permission of the author.