I noticed how many people owned parrots in the 'strange thing you own" thread and realised there have been far too many kitten threads lately so we need a big bird thread.
My Jardines parrot right now is really into the ‘fire alarm’ theme. We’ve had several alarms in our building over the last few months and I think he thinks it’s The Coolest Thing he’s ever heard in his life, so every now and then to get a bit of attention he’ll do it as loud as he can for, oh, 3 seconds or something. He’s really good at it.
This is less annoying, though, than his love for the scrumptious flavor of doorframe. The little colorful buttons on X-box controllers are pretty irresistable, too.
And inappropriate PDAs; recently during a couch-nap he came over and stood on the side of my head (argh! talons in hair!) and tried to lovingly preen and allofeed my ear. Ugh.
Friends have a parrot who has mimicked their electronic sounding telephone ring to the point where when he starts it, you really cannot tell whether it’s him or the phone :x
His favorite phrase is “What the** hell ** are you doing?!?!?!” as only Beau can screech it 
Budgies are parrots, right? Caesar isn’t particularly vocally annoying (he mimics a couple of dozen words and phrases well, and also likes to mutter long strings of angry-human-sounding nonsense), but he is a bit on the beaky side; he’s very affectionate and will spend hours sitting on my shoulder, or on my chest if I lean back. He demands constant attention though; if he can, he will bring his face as close to my mouth as possible, the moment I stop talking to him, he’s liable to nip me on the lip or face. I think this would probably be quite appropriate if I was another budgie and had hard mouthparts.
Several YEARS ago, our carbon monoxide detector started beeping when we weren’t home (no actual gas…the thing malfunctioned). Ever since, our parrot has been doing an amazingly accurate and annoying impression of it. It could make you go crazy. We have been trying and trying to break him of the habit, but I am afraid we are going to have to live with it!
When I was an older teen, my siblings and I had a budgie that picked up on our call to our mother “Hey, Mama?” My mother was driven crazy, because she’d ask which of us was calling her, and we’d all deny it. When we went back to school, she was STILL hearing it, and finally figured out that it was the bird. She was Not Amused.
Maybe not so much obnoxious as it is inappropriate, but my parent’s eclectus went through this phase where he would start humping his perch and making the noises to go along with it, like ‘unf unf unf’.
The obnoxious thing he does is if someone walks by his cage, and they’re ‘taller’ than him, he shrieks at the top of his lungs at them. It very annoying when company would come over and are not prepared to have a parrot screaming at them the minute they come through the door.
These are just a couple examples, but the parrot basically epitomizes the idea of the dirty, grumpy old man. He also mumbles nonsensical things under his breath, which makes him sound like a drunk crazy person.
I have friends with, I think 6 parrot-like “children.” I don’t know what they all are, one is an African Grey, and one is a peach cheek something. They are all so funny! I’d love to have one, but I’m too old and grumpy myself…
Since they all sleep in the same room and they have all been trained using the same rules. Bad behavior is treated to a “squirt” with a spray bottle, and the word “squirt.”
When they’ve been put to bed, while company is still in the house, they complain about it. The Grey will yell “squirt!” and “stopitstopitstopit” at the others when he wants to sleep and the rest are making noise.
They have really great conversations among themselves. They call the dog every morning for a walk, which make my friend crazy. They call “here kitty” to the cat and make a can opener noise.
The grey is able to unlock his cage. One night, we were sitting around the kitchen table, playing a game.
I was facing the birds room door, when it opened a crack. A little grey head popped around the corner. He saw me and went back in. My friends told me to not look and see what he did. Next time, he peeked out, then scurried across the floor to hide behind one of the dogs. Then he raced to the other dog, who was under the table. My friend, in a normal conversational voice said “Birds belong in bed this late.” I swear, he stomped back to his room, just like a four year old!
I had a g/f who worked in a large pet store that had 15 or 20 parrots at any given time. Two of them were almost impossible to sell because they would start screaming “fuck you” and “motherfucker” back and forth at each other on a pretty regular basis. They also had a sun conjure who loved everyone except the bird dept supervisor who was bitten 5-6 times while any other bird room employee was greeted with compliance and snuggling.
I cannot cannot cannot stop my cockatiel screaming. It doesn’t matter what I do. It’s constant and draining. I spent 2 days in bed ill this week, and the thing just screamed the whole time. If anyone has any tips, would appreciate it.
When I was a kid, my father had a scarlet macaw, a blue hyacinth, and an amazon that all talked. They would imitate my sister and I fighting. We’d go off to school, and my poor mother still had to listen to *“That’s my sweater, you bitch!” * all day long.
The blue hyacinth, 20 years later, **still ** screeches “Dianaaaaaaaaa, phooooooone!!!” every time the phone rings.
I had a cockatiel for many years, and when he would getting into screaming fits, covering his cage always worked - the darker the better.
Are you sure there isn’t anything (other than lack of attention or being out) that it is screaming about ? (cat staring at him through a window ? Some new, threatening looking “thing” in the environment ?)
As for what obnoxious thing my senegal does, there’s a little girl across the street who will scream (with glee) while playing. Guess who’s picked it up ? And out of nowhere will throw it out there ? Sounds like I’m torturing a little girl in the house. Great.
My cockatiels commence singing at the crack of dawn and get very excited as the sun rises. I used to tell them the sun has been coming up for 5 billion years so it’s no big deal, but now I just say “Bliss it was in that dawn to be alive, but to be a cockatiel was the very Heaven.”
One of the male cockatiels can imitate the smoke alarm and wolf whistle. Lately he hasn’t been too noisy–he has to watch the other cockatiels carefully, as a rival male has been flirting with his girlfriend.
The nanday screams if someone comes to the house. Sometimes he screams if he sees an air molecule he doesn’t recognize. The female ringneck parrot also likes to scream–she’ll sit in the window, watch the world go by, and comment loudly on it. Once she yelled for two hours because of a snowstorm. I didn’t help matters by telling her it was the fallout.