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I don't know how this little bird fits so much talent, brains, good looks and personality into one small body!
We just discovered he has another musical talent when Dave was playing his guitar the other evening.
http://youtu.be/lT9wuGpLw_k

Both your musical boys in green - just delightful!

Hehehe David's pretty talented too!
By the way the horrible squeaking noise Nila makes in the second bit is his attempt at saying David. He started repeating it back to me a couple nights ago, he's saying it much clearer already.

That is the cutest thing ever Nila obviously has good taste in music. Love that song! I was singing along to the video. But Zeppelins version doesn't have peekaboo in the lyrics

Ahhhh Nila. Love it! Well done.

Ellie.

Skyes_crew wrote:That is the cutest thing ever Nila obviously has good taste in music. Love that song! I was singing along to the video. But Zeppelins version doesn't have peekaboo in the lyrics

Nila likes to put his unique twist on covers by improvising his own lyrics. I'll subtitle the next one

Stairway to "Peekaboo"

There's a birdy who knows all the glitters is sunflower seeds
And she's flying the stairway to peek a boo.

LMBO

Btw you know how birdies like to make up sentences. .. Nila spent hours practising "AAAAVVV idd good boy" yesterday. I have a feeling Dave is going to get trained by a bird one day soon!

Dave wave...good boy...treat

Skye put together hello? Coooome heeeere it's the two things I yell up the stairs to the kids lol. For a female she's got an awesome vocabulary.

I passed Mack's cage this morning and he said hey babe. Wonder where he got that from

Lol
I hope Nila will start using words in context. So far, besides wolf whistling at me in the shower, the only time he uses imitation in context is to whistle us to come to the kitchen when he's hungry.

Nila has a lovely voice

Thanks, jmlw, he certainly seems to like the sound of it

Here's another musical video: http://youtu.be/KNN6iYm3LtM Don't worry, it's short!
for some reason when I tried to reduce the quality of the video it has sort of chopped Nila out of shot in places, but you get the idea anyway.

We need to get Nila a grass skirt lol.

Om nom nom. He'd love that, it would be like a portable chew toy for him lol

You do realize that I now believe there are no limits and I want him to strum that while standing on the fret board and choosing (not chewsing) notes of a song. He can fret with his feet.

If he gets to that level, I think Jay Leno should fly that bird out to Hollywood

Claire, that's lovely.

I'm afraid that if Jay flew Nila to USA, Nila probably wouldn't be allowed back into Australia.

Ellie.

Oh how sad then he'd have to come stay with me

Nila wouldn't like jay leno, he dislikes people who aren't confident with parrots. He wouldn't like a tv studio either.

He probably wouldn't mind a short holiday in Hawaii though. .. or maybe that's just me putting words in his mouth.
But, Melissa, after a week of him shouting "David" at the top of his range you would be putting him straight on that plane home

Missk, Nila says "do you mean like this?" Ummm I'm putting words in his mouth again, he actually said "David david david. David what are you doin?"....  http://youtu.be/eTvpHz9gl0Q 

Oooh yeah! I expect a jingle by Christmas!

Not likely to happen! Maybe when we get him a friend it can do the fingering and Nila can strum

What about a duet? Dave can do the chords and Nila can strum

Mel, we did try that once. Dave insisted Nila strummed over the sound hole though. Nila insisted that the hole had been invented so he could put the pick in it! He loves dropping things in there... if you leave the ukulele on the table you can find all his little toys in it within minutes. He's so cute and clever!

Lol.

Ummm...that's not what those holes are for???

I think I've confused the poor wee thing with all these different games.

The most cutest moment of confusion has to be when I was trying to explain the baby grand piano to him. He can't get a sound out of it, not even when he stands on the keys. He was getting really frustrated until he had an idea.... He ran across the table, came back with the ukulele pick and proceeded to strum at the piano keys!

I videoed it when I realised what he was doing, but I had missed the eureka moment where he went for the pick by then.

Has anyone got any idea of how to explain the concept of pressing down hard on a key? I can't think of a nice way of doing it so the baby piano is now an ornament.

My best guess is let dave model it and treat dave. Maybe gently press the bird onto the keys until they sound and treat for the sound?

MissK wrote:My best guess is let dave model it and treat dave. Maybe gently press the bird onto the keys until they sound and treat for the sound?

Nila already knows how to say good boy Dave

how hard are the keys to push? Are you going for foot or beak? My first idea would be to tape Popsicle sticks to the keys to lengthen the keys and to give Nila leverage. Make them like handles he has to pull down or push down. Then over time clip a little length off of the Popsicle stick until its even again.

Lol missk, dave is getting fed up with having to pretend he likes eating oat groats!

We have been considering something similar to the popsicle stick idea, it's probably going to be the way to go.