Cookie the Amazon Parrot Is Laughing At Me

My Yellow-crowned Amazon Cookie is around 50 years old. I’ve had him since 1993 when we bought him from a neighbor who had a wife with allergies — forcing the neighbor to relocate poor Cookie to life in the garage.

Later, I met the owner before that. He said he sold Cookie after 17 years when his wife got pregnant with a surprise fifth child.

Cookie was an excellent talker then, and he’s still got an excellent voice now, although these days he rarely says anything new. Like many pet Amazons, he’s always been a talker, not a doer.

That’s my nice way of saying he’s lazy. I try to get him to exercise, but usually, I’m the one who ends up doing all the work.

For Christmas 2020, I ordered him a birdie backpack so he could go walking around the neighborhood with me. (That’s not an affiliate link, and I’m not getting paid to mention them, in case you’re wondering. But if you have a bird that you'd like to take walking around in a backpack, now you know how to make it happen.)

At first, Cookie was less than thrilled with the alleged gift. He did not like stepping inside. I think he feared it was just a fancy kind of travel carrier, which isn’t entirely illogical.

So I taught the smaller birds to ride around in it first. Cookie could see its appearance didn’t mean we were evacuating for some stupid storm or heading for the vet or some other unwanted adventure.

Nowadays, he looks forward to our little neighborhood strolls. Often, he’ll say, “Hi,” or, “Help, help,” or he’ll start laughing at the various neighbors and their dogs that we meet along the way.

I can’t photograph the Pak-O-Bird closed to show the birds inside. The chew-resistant screen makes a moire pattern in the image. But apparently, they can see out just fine.

If there’s a cat around, Cookie goes dead silent. If it’s a dog, he prompts the dog with, “Hello, Cookie.” He knows everything that’s going on — except he never figures out that his doggie friends will never, ever say, “Hello,” back to him.

When we meet people, what Cookie says depends on his mood. Sometimes, he’s talkative. Sometimes, he turns around in the backpack muttering to himself.

But, almost always, he cracks up laughing.

Cookie has an interesting relationship with other birds. The thing is, I'm not sure he considers himself a bird. I think he considers himself a people.

After all, he speaks English. Mere birds do not.

However, he always made a special exception for Blue Jays. While he ignores many of our yard birds, he used to talk to any Jay who entered the backyard.

"Hello, pretty bird," he'd say.

Are Jays in a special class because he suspects they could speak if they wanted to? After all, we hear them mimic our local Red-Shouldered Hawks fairly often.

But, no matter how many times he called to the Jays in our yard, they never acknowledged him. After a couple of years, he must have decided they never would, and he stopped calling out to them.

It's different when we're out backpacking. He seems to remember his old affection for these birds on those fine afternoons. If a Blue Jay crosses our path, Cookie often remembers to sing out a big, "Hello."

They still don't talk back, though.

His new buddy is a Red-headed Woodpecker who is almost always working a dead tree that we check each time we walk around the neighborhood. I think Cookie is coming to look forward to that stop.

As we approached the tree a few days ago, Cookie sang out, "Hello, pretty bird." The woodpecker paused, then resumed hammering.

But the Red-head knew we were there. On the visit after that, he flew over to make a circle to see if he could see inside the backpack.

Cookie laughed with happiness. And so did I.

Author's note: A shorter version of this story appeared in Snapshots, a Medium publication. If you enjoyed seeing it here, tap that <3 button and/or leave a small tip to let me know.

You can read another story about my senior birds here:

You can read more about our neighborhood Red-headed Woodpeckers here: