I’m already heartily sick of winter, so I’m thinking of doing a tropical day this Saturday for me and Mrs. solost-- we have a fireplace insert that heats the house nice and warm. I’ll get a hot fire going and get the fireplace room warm enough to wear shorts and t-shirts. I have an anti-S.A.D. bright light thingy on a stand I’ll set up on the fireplace mantel as a stand-in sun. I’ll make Margaritas and play Bob Marley and maybe a bit of Buffett. I’ll close the blinds so we can’t see the winter desolation.
To round it all out, I’d like to be able to play tropical scenes on the TV, with the sound off, just for background. A “tropical scenes” track similar to the Christmas 'Yule Log" fire on Netflix would be ideal, but I doubt anything like that exists for tropical scenes. So a movie or TV show would suffice, something that is very heavy on tropical beauty and very light on plot (don’t want to get intrigued enough to be tempted to turn the sound up and watch it, just use it for background). We currently have Netflix, Hulu and Prime.
Yeah, I know it sounds kind of silly, but due to the ongoing pandemic and other reasons, a trip to Florida or somewhere else warm is not in the cards this year
Both are filmed in the rain forest and feature flocks of parrots and macaws in flight. I turn one on for our African Grey to watch (wrong continent, but he’s ok with that).
There are a variety of 4k streaming channels which have scenic videos of all kinds of locations. I don’t know of any specifically by name, but I have come across them when scrolling through the available streaming apps on my Roku and Google streaming devices. I think if you search for apps using terms like ‘scenic’ or ‘4k’ you should be able to find some nature ones. Some videos are free and some are paid.
I typed ‘scenic’ into search on my Firestick and found several ‘scenery channel’ programs with nothing but beach views and no dialog whatsoever, just sounds of crashing waves on Prime. So it is pretty much the tropical equivalent of the Netflix “Yule Log”. Perfect, thanks!
Taking note of this, if not for 'tropical day", to watch sometime, since I think parrots are cool. Does your African Grey talk, or do tricks or things that display high intelligence? I’ve heard parrots, and especially African Greys, are comparable in intelligence to a 3 to 5 year old child.
Rocco is an absolute riot. He talks (mimics) but he often says things that fit contextually and he picks up words/phrases without us trying to teach him. Because I’m hard of hearing and our home is large, I walk in from outside and go from room to room saying, “hello?”. Hearing me, my gf will yell, “What?”. Rocco now answers my “hello?” with “what?” in my gf’s voice. He also lures my gf when I’m gone by yelling “hello?” in my voice so that she comes looking for me.
He shares food with Loki (one of our 3 dogs). He never shares food with the other two dogs, but if Loki is around he gives her pieces of whatever he has.
During the summer, we put him in a cage on our side porch. A few years ago he wolf-whistled. Our neighbor (who we can’t really see) had run out to fill her bird feeder while wearing a bathrobe. She complained to another neighbor about me being a pervert, but the other neighbor told her it was probably Rocco.
It’s not quite what you want, but the WW2 film ‘Ice Cold in Alex’ has some decent acting and a lot of desert.
(The title refers to a classic scene near the end… [’ Ice Cold in Alex - Bing video’])
My grandparents had a parakeet when I was a kid. I don’t think parakeets are nearly as intelligent as parrots, but it was a great mimic too. It used to repeat a lot of things my grandparents said, and even sounds it heard. My grandpa had a distinctive cough, and after he died, the parakeet would make the coughing sound exactly like him-- it was spooky. Once I was alone in a room with the parakeet, and, just goofing around, asked it a question with a ‘yes or no’ answer (can’t remember the question, unfortunately). it answered with a clear ‘yes’. Not saying it actually understood the question, just saying it happened.
Between 1954 and 1962, a budgerigar named Sparkie Williams held the record for having the largest vocabulary of a talking bird; at his death, he knew 531 words and 383 sentences. In 1995, a budgerigar named Puck was credited by Guinness World Records as having the largest vocabulary of any bird, at 1,728 words.
I’ll third this - it’s relatively “light” as murder mystery shows go (sort of a “Murder She Wrote” level), and the views are nice.
I will note, however, that behind-the-scenes stories about the show report that Guadeloupe, where the show is filmed, is a bit of a shithole in reality. But then things often look prettier on television.
Actually watched a season or two of this show awhile back. I remember it being a fairly entertaining watch, but stopped watching it at some point for some reason. Wow, I see online it’s 9 seasons-- that seems like a lot of seasons for a BBC show. Anyone left alive on that little island?
Maybe I’ll get back into it-- a show set on a tropical island would be welcome to watch for the next few months before the weather gets tolerable again.
I’d hate to be the ad guy hired to promote the island— “Come visit beautiful Saint-Marie. Perfect weather, wonderful views. And now with only a 37% chance of being murdered!”
