| Hi Everyone, I'm Bandit. I'm the African Grey that my human slave ' Justin' talks about all the time. Let me tell you a little about myself. I was hatched out on September 1st 2002 in Madera, California. For the first 4 months of my life I was being raised at Sylvia's A-Mays-ing Creatures in Madera Ranchos, California. Sylvia did a wonderful job raising me. One day when I was about 4 months old 2 men walked into the store stating that they were interested in purchasing an African Grey. Sylvia walked over and picked me up. She must have thought I was pretty special to use me as an example, haha! She handed me to Justin but I didn't really know him that well at that point, and as soon as I stepped up onto his hand I promptly made my way back to Sylvia's arm. Sylvia told Justin that African Greys were leery of strangers, but that didn't deter him. Justin & Michael quickly put a down payment on me and claimed me as their own. Well over the next 5-6 weeks Justin would make the 50 mile round trip to visit me. I wouldn't really pay much attention to him when he was there, but he would sit there and talk to me, and hand me foot toys to play with. Well the day came that it was time for me to head off to my new home. Justin came to the store and picked me up. Put me in a carrier and drove back down to Selma. I knew from the moment that I saw my new 'home' that I was going to be a spoiled bird. I have a huge big white cage filled with toys and rope perches. Justin placed me in the cage and left me for a while , so that I could get use to my new surroundings. He went about his household chores, but would stop by my cage every 10 minutes or so just to talk to me and tell me I'm beautiful. He also told me that this was my forever home. I had been weaned on veggies and fruits and had no trouble eating those foods when Justin would feed me. Over the next few months I went through the usual African Grey phases. My eyes turned from a dark grey, to a pretty yellow color. I would try to scare Justin into thinking I was going to bite him, especially when he would reach into my cage and ask me to step up. Justin wouldn't have anything to do with that and figured out a way to get me to stop that. You'll have to ask him what that is, as I don't want other African Grey human slaves to start picking up on Justin's way of getting me to behave myself. To this day I'm still trying to figure out a way of bluffing Justin again. Patience is the key I think.....From the time I was 6 months old I started to whistle. Justin would whistle all kinds of sounds and I would copy him. Really I think he was copying me but sshhhh, Don't tell him that! Once I turned 12 months old, I started talking. I started out with "Hello" and "What What". Over the next 12 months I picked up on all kinds of words. I now say around 70 words and am learning new words all the time. I'll post a list of all the words I say later on. Justin loves to take me out of my cage. I spend alot of time with him watching TV. Our favorite show is The Golden Girls. We play a few different games when I am out of the cage. One game we play is "fetch". Justin will roll a small wooden ball along the floor and tell me to go fetch. It took me a while but I now run ( well it's more of a hop as I look all pigeon toed as I walk across a flat surface ) after the wooden ball when he throws it. Another game we play, is where Justin places me on top of the Dining room table. He then crawls under and pops up on the other side. He taps the table top and tells me to "come here". I then hop across the table just in time to see him disappear under the table again. He has the bad habit of popping his head up, just as I am peering over the edge to see where he disappeared too. I've learnt to tap my beak on the table and tell him "come on". He cracks up laughing at me when I run across the table. He also takes credit for me saying "come on", however the joke is on him. You see, I get a kick out of watching him move under the table and coming up on the other side. I'm sure Michael thinks he is crazy for the amount of time he spends with me, teaching me new things. Justin has also taught me to play dead! He will lay me on his lap and tell me "dead bird", I lay very still until he says "Good Boy" and then I get some almond treats. I do appreciate the time Justins spends with me though. I don't show my affection very much, but there are times where I will show him I care. Sometimes I will hold his finger in my foot and gently beak it. I wont bite down hard but I will gently move my beak along his finger. I then crawl up his shirt and snuggle under his chin for a quick cuddle. Life here sure is fun. I've got a large white cage that is filled with perches & toys for me to enjoy, Justin makes all our toys & employed me as his official toy design tester. Every new toy design he comes up with he will use my superior chewing skills to decide if he should make more. He thinks I'm helping him out and in a way, I probably am, but the reality is that like a celebrity at pre event get together, I'm just enjoying the freebies :) One of...how should I say it... hmm lets say the benefits of living here is that I am considered the Number 1 bird in the house. My neighbours in the living room here are Rico - a huge obnoxiously loud Blue & Gold Macaw & Kyeeky - the fiesty little White Bellied Caique who thinks he is all that and a bag of chips. Another benefit of living here is that it's a busy household so I'm always picking up on different voices in the house. I can imitate Justins accent, Michaels voice, Michaels oldest son's voice plus a few of Michaels nieces voices. I take delight in confusing everyone from Justin, Michael and the kids but my favorite thing to confuse is Rico. You see I'm actually sly in that I make a ton of noise and get the noise level of the room up. Rico thinks its playtime so as a result he will start getting VERY loud. Justin usually chimes in and will say "Rico" and when Rico keeps on, Justin will say "Rico, Give it a rest". If Rico still insists Justin will blurt out "Rico - Knock If Off". I've learnt to say all these things and let me tell you, it's so much fun to say those things in Justins accent and have poor Rico look around all confused wondering where Justin is. Needless to say I just kick back in my cage all proud of myself. |
| I've been promising these for a while now so here is a list of some of the things I say. So here we go |
| Bandit Rico Justin Mike Mikey Jennifer Baby Walnut Apple Formula Coffee Up What Oh No Yuck Shower Toy Help |
| What's that Noise? What's that Smell? Is That Mike? Are You Scared? Where's Mike? Where's Jay? Where's My Boy? Where's Bandit? What are you doing? |
| Single Words |
| Questions |
| Sayings |
| What's That Smell?... It's You Want Shower Want Apple Want Walnut Want Formula I'm Scared I'm Stuck Oh No Ewww Yuck Knock It Off Give It A Rest Stop It Step Up Step Down Don't Bite No Biting HAHAHAHAHA! Arrgghhhhhhhh Be Nice Good Boy I Love You I Missed You Want Toy Tickle Tickle Want Tickle Tickle You Want Some? Big Butt Red Butt Just Stop Get Your Butt Up Oh No .... No ..... Help Hello....Yep.... Uh Huh.... Ok....Bye. What the hell? |
| Sounds |
| House phone. Justin's Cell Phone. Meow Like A Cat. Clucks Like A Chicken. Beeping Noise when the Garbage Truck Backs up. Wolf Whistles Whistle I Use to call the dogs. Does various imitations of our other birds, including Parrotlets, Cockatiels, Caiques. |
| Saturday March 18, 2006. So a few weekends ago I'm in the living room cleaning out bird cages and scrubbing down the grates on the cage floor. Bandit was being his usual self when I'm cleaning. He loves to get up in my Kool Aid and tell me what to do. So there I am scrubbing away and he's chattering away when he blurted out something in Michaels voice. I got up marched outside and told Michael, You really need to stop talking around my bird. Michael said why? I told him he just blurted out the funniest thing and he asked what it was that Bandit had said. I told him I'm scrubbing the cages when he said "What are you doing White Boy" I never laughed so hard in my life. It was so funny to hear him say that. Of course he had his smug look on his face like he always does when he's proud of himself. |
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| Page Updated: 10/12/2008 |
| Bandit - My African Grey |
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