Birds · plate 35 of 60
Parrot
Psittacus erithacus
Talks all day. Understands more of it than you'd like.
Only 1.0% of people are Parrots. (estimated)
If you're a Parrot
You talk, you listen, you learn new words from everybody and you use them at the worst moment. Gray parrots live in loud flocks, pair for life, preen their friends and can learn to name colors, shapes and numbers; you are sociable, clever and emotionally loud, and your memory for what people said is excellent and a little alarming.
A gray parrot named Alex learned about a hundred words, could count small sets and once asked what color he was, which is often credited as the first recorded question from a non-human.
The Parrot as a spirit animal
Matching a Parrot says you are social, quick and vocal, with a brain that never stops learning and a mouth that never stops reporting. You remember kindness and repeat it; you also remember slights and repeat those at parties. The flaw is boredom: a Parrot without company or novelty takes it out on itself. Gray parrots can live sixty years. That is a long time to keep repeating one anecdote. Learn new ones.
Grounded in how the species actually lives; nothing borrowed from anyone's tradition. Why we put it that way.
How to get along with a Parrot
Do
- Talk to them, a lot; conversation is how they stay well.
- Give them a new puzzle each week and let them show you the solution.
- Watch your language. All of it will be quoted back.
Don't
- Don't leave them alone for long; parrots pluck when lonely and so, in their way, do they.
- Don't tell them a secret unless you want it in circulation.
When it goes wrong: A Parrot under pressure gets shrill, repetitive and bitey; give them company, something to chew on and time, and never a cage.
The Parrot in a relationship
You love out loud. Gray parrots pair for life, preen each other's heads, share food and call back and forth across the forest to stay in touch; you are affectionate, chatty and faithful, and you need to hear from your person more often than they think reasonable. Daily is a minimum.
Field notes
Every animal is placed on six personality traits derived from how the species lives. Your answers are placed on the same six, and the closest animal wins. How the scoring works
- Sociability
- 9
- Boldness
- 7
- Energy
- 7
- Curiosity
- 9
- Devotion
- 8
- Roaming
- 4
- Parrots have no vocal cords; they make sounds with a syrinx at the base of the windpipe and shape them with the tongue.
- Gray parrots in experiments will hand a token to a hungry neighbor so it can buy food, with no reward for themselves.
- Wild gray parrots gather at communal roosts in large numbers and can live for decades.
Parrots in literature
- Polynesia — The Story of Doctor Dolittle, Hugh Lofting (1920)
- Captain Flint — Treasure Island, Robert Louis Stevenson (1883)
- Poll — Robinson Crusoe, Daniel Defoe (1719)
Characters from public-domain works. Company, not a verdict.
Closest personalities
The animals whose profiles sit nearest to the Parrot's. If you got Parrot, one of these was probably your runner-up.
Other birds
EagleOwlRavenHummingbirdPeacockPenguinFlamingoAlbatrossSwanWoodpeckerFalconOstrichPigeon
Among the 60
The Swiss Family Robinson (illustrated edition), Johann David Wyss (1880). Public domain, viacommons.wikimedia.org.All credits
