Welcome to Arielle's world!
It would be unfair to avoid the subject of speaking abilities of macaws and other parrots. Macaws can reproduce the sound of human speech quite well or with various types of distortion. The matter becomes difficult because some sources state that macaws are not very good talkers, while others claim that macaws are excellent speakers.
There is insufficient space here to explain why. In a nutshell: Arielle achieves a level of speech that is unparalleled. Her words in the speech clip below reveal that she can do something unusual.
Arielle often assembles series of untutored statements. In this example she makes a pronoun substitution that shows a small portion of her understanding of English. Click the play button to hear her speak.
Arielle demonstrating pronoun substitution
Arielle hopes that you find her story informative and interesting. She is a parrot-like bird whose relatives originally lived in tropical environments including the savannahs and rain forests of South America. Arielle is a member of the species Ara ararauna commonly known as the Blue and Gold macaw.
Brightly colored macaws are the largest parrot-like birds in the New World; their usual imposing size is between 33 to 36 inches from the crown of their head to the tip of their tail. If you imagine a macaw without its 20-24 inch tail feathers, the parrot would be about the size of a two-pound chicken.
Hobbyists and pet owners keep more Blue and Gold macaws than any other type of macaw, so a Blue and Gold macaw, like Arielle, is not considered a rare bird. What makes macaws popular parrots?
People are attracted to macaws by their sleek beauty and brilliant colors. Beyond their physical beauty, the birds have common endearing traits and develop individual personalities. Some macaws are very active birds, and they love to play with toys and disassemble things.
A macaw's antics keep the bird amused and can entertain its owners; however, care needs to be taken because large parrots can inadvertently ruin things in and around a home. Owners need to provide the birds with wooden-chew toys and people need to be vigilant about the bird's activities.
As an example, a playful macaw, when unsupervised, can destroy household objects. Arielle has at times chewed on wood molding around a doorway near her cage. When she is free in the house, she can walk up a spiral staircase and mount a wooden rail along the edge of our loft. She damaged the railing by breaking small chunks from the wood. This behavior is not done in spite; the bird is doing what comes naturally: wood is for chewing, and girls just like to have fun!
Macaws, like other parrots, benefit from what many people consider to be an inordinate amount of time with their owners. This is no coincidence. In the wild many parrot species pair off as monogamous couples and spend a lifetime together.
People ask me how much time one needs to properly care for a bird like Arielle. My answer is 4 hours a day extending over 365 days a year.
So, for a number of reasons, four hours is not an overly generous accounting for the time it takes to look after one's bird. It's like having a second wife, but each of us knows that before we buy a bird. The trouble is that most birds are short changed and it's not right. Don't buy a large bird unless you can forever devote four hours of each day to your feathered friend.
Arielle said spontaneously, "I'm a pretty, ... pretty girl!" The significance of her statement exceeds the simplicity of the words she speaks. Arielle is substituting pronouns in her speech, creating a new variation of what she was told.