Perhaps a Norwegian Blue Parrot - they’re rather quiet.
Everything redtail said. I’ve seen too many birds languish because people don’t realize the true level of care they need.
A bird at the local shelter is likely not going to be the type of companion you’re envisioning. It’ll be a bird unused to human contact and unwilling to change.
If you do decide you have the time and energy to own a bird, parakeets are great first birds! They have tons of personality and are easily paper-trained.
But also unhappy. Always pining for the fjords.
I had a budgie that was a very good bird. I got him as an injured wild fledgling so he was very tame. He loved to play basketball with one of those jingley ball toys. He’d flip it around the cage until he managed to throw it in his seed dish. Then he’d act all pleased with himself for several minutes then retrieve the ball and start all over again. He’d talk to the ball but it was bird gibberish. He only ever learned to say hello and he mostly said it late at night as I was drifting off to sleep. He was about 15 and I was going go move an hour away so I gave him to my sister because I thought it would be too stressful and he lived several more years. He did fine by himself as long as he had his ball and he wasn’t too noisy. So a budgie is a good starter bird.
I like cockatiels but be warned, they are insane. The yellow ones are especially prone to night terrors where they just freak out for no reason and can injure themselves. They also sing a lot, especially males, so can be much more noisy than a budgie.
Here’s a dumb question — don’t they poop when you let them out of the cage? I love birds but that one thing has kept me from ever even thinking about looking into keeping a bird.
Are pet birds prone to injury from flying into windows?
I know birds of the parrot/parakeet family enjoy and need a variety of toys to play with, but how exactly does a human owner play with the bird?
I had a nice long answer all typed out and accidentally hit the Delete key…:smack:
Short answer: I had parakeets as a kid. Budgies enjoy any kind of gentle hands-on interaction. They love climbing all over you. If you make a ladder of your fingers, they enjoy climbing up them. They love water, so you can put a little water in a disposable aluminum pie tin and let them splash and bathe in it. As Wile E. noted, they enjoy toys. They can learn to toss a ball around and fetch it. You could have the bird perch on your finger close to your face and try to teach it to talk. Not all budgies learn, but they do enjoy the sound of your voice and to watch your lips as you speak to them. They, or single birds, anyway, come to view owners as part of their flock and want to be close to you. You could also hold a treat, such as a millet spray out to the bird and let it nibble at it. Even if your bird does not become tame, you can sit near their cage and read aloud from a newspaper or magazine. if you whistle and imitate their chatter at them, they will become quite excited and chirp and chatter back. Anything that keeps the bird mentally simulated and makes it feel like a part of the flock is good.
So, say you do have a cat. (And I don’t see me getting birds, but I’ve been curious.) Are finches and canaries and such okay, assuming the cage is safe? Are they stupid birds who don’t do anything except make a bunch of noise?
It’s funny you should raise this topic. I’ve been reading a great big book on how to put your budgie down, and evidently, you can either hit them with the book or you can shoot them there, just above the beak.
Everybody poops. What really turned me off was that when you see somebody walking down the street with a parrot on their shoulder, invariably their shoulder is covered in poop. And thus, this thread about paper training. 
Also I’m bored of fish, cats and dogs. I’ve never really considered myself an animal person, but looking back, I’ve owned fish for about 15 years, cats for around 20, and dogs for about 30 (some concurrently.)
I had budgies as a child and teen. All of them enjoyed being talked to, and being petted. They especially enjoyed chin skritchies, they’d close their eyes and puff out their feathers and make little happy sounds. If they could have purred, they would have. The birds also liked to nibble on anything they could, including fingers and eyeglasses. They liked to climb on people and share food with us. And they enjoyed toys. Most of them had a mirror with a bell on it, and I’d tap the bell with a finger, and they’d respond by tapping the bell too.
Budgies and other birds in that family love to socialize, and this includes vocalizations. My sibs and I made an effort to teach some words and phrases to the birds, which the birds would usually learn, but the birds also picked up some words and phrases, too. For instance, my sibs and I would usually call our mother with a phrase, which one bird learned and would repeat to my distracted mother when we were all in school, making her think that she was either hearing things or losing her mind.
Re: poop – I knew someone who had a budgie, and when it was out it wore some kind of budgie diaper. It was like a little sheath that fit over the tail and I guess it must have had loops over the wing somehow. It was really cute!
p.s. – link to http://birddiaper.com/
Ok, I really want a budgie now, thanks for all the advice. 
What kind of initial costs am I looking at? I probably will have to wait until after tax season.
Also, what I can do to reduce noise?