Pining for the fjords?

Not the Norweigian Blue with its beautiful plumage, but a great deal more lively. From the BBC: “Parrot’s oratory stuns scientists”

The finding of a parrot with an almost unparalleled power to communicate with people has brought scientists up short.

The bird, a captive African grey called N’kisi, has a vocabulary of 950 words, and shows signs of a sense of humour.

He invents his own words and phrases if he is confronted with novel ideas with which his existing repertoire cannot cope - just as a human child would do.

We have a poodle whose only handicap for speaking English is lack of vocal cords. ;)

This reminds me of a portion of Nick Sagan’s “Memories Of My Dad” post from the Carl Sagan Memorial Blog-a-Thon earlier this month.

His laugh was explosive and uninhibited. It was the kind of laugh that made you feel good for making him laugh. His sneezes were booming. And sometimes he’d talk to animals in their native tongue. The times we’d see dolphins, he’d greet them in a reasonable approximation of dolphin speak. They’d often answer him. I have no idea what was said.

I’ll bet the dolphins did, though.