Victor, The Budgie Who Could Talk

April 3, 2003 10:37 AM

Victor, The Budgie Who Could TalkRyan Reynolds built an online shrine to his friend and pet bird Victor, a precociously chatty budgerigar with an extensive 800-word vocabulary. There are audio and video clips of Victor talking and a history of the bird and even budgie training tips. You may need to replay the audio a few times to get the gist of what Victor's saying, it takes a minute to get into his little budgie accent, but you will be amazed at what you hear (hope this is all true and not a farce). Reynolds has included subtitles with each of the audio and video clips. Sadly, Victor suddenly became very ill and died on March 2, 2001. (Warning: Every link off the main page pops up in a new browser window. It's annoying, but the site is worth the mild inconvenience.)
posted by VelvetHellvis (4 comments total)

errr, try as I might, I can't make out anything like language out of the poor creature's squawks.
posted by xmutex at 11:01 AM on April 3, 2003

But how do we know that's a real, not a fake budgie?

But I don't doubt the budgie was real. Birds can be surprisingly good linguists - Parrots are remarkably talkative too (or are they of the same avian family? *scratches head, declines to Google*). There's probably a similarity between the avian brain centers which have developed the capacity for complex bird calls, songs, and even sometimes human language, and the human brains centers which have developed to make us into such a chatty species.

But - birdsongs or human language - it all boils down to sex. I wonder if the talkative budgie ever got any?
posted by troutfishing at 11:02 AM on April 3, 2003

(*Sniff*) I miss Davy, our parakeet. He could talk too, plus whistle Yankee Doodle and do all kinds of endearing stuff. No one who ate toast or popcorn was safe around Davy, as he would fly down and help himself to a few bites.
posted by Lynsey at 11:02 AM on April 3, 2003

Funny site VelvetHellvis! I am always amused and touched (and occasionally horrified) by the variety of shrine sites on the web. This could be real. Looks like a case for MoJo investigatory work!

When I was a kid - one of seven in an irish american household - my parents had all us kids kneel together every night and say the rosary. (Horribile dictu!) We always had parakeets, and one of them used to be able to say snippets of prayers, quite comical.

It was a very boring exercise so it was delightful to have distractions like this. It took an act of God - like one of the dogs getting sprayed by a skunk - for my parents to allow a break in the routine.
posted by madamjujujive at 9:06 PM on April 3, 2003