Things that go ZZZZZ in the night

Joey and Dutch, our Timneh grey pair, are really delightful companions, but are not my first grey birds. 

Many years ago I got my first parrot, a lovely recently imported Timneh African Grey.  She was shy and wild, and it took a long time to tame her, though spending hours sitting and talking and singing and reading to her eventually won her over.  She lived in my bedroom – a novice bird-owner mistake that actually resulted in many other funny stories, none of which I will repeat here.  (For those of you who don't know, Timneh greys are superb mimics - ooops!)  She had the liberty of the room, which was kept closed off to keep her from encounters with the cats.

One night, about two years after she came to live with us, my husband spent the night away on business.  I took the opportunity to have an early dinner and read before bed – a Stephen King novel, “Pet Cemetery” of all the weird choices-  so I went to bed a tad jumpy.  I woke from my sleep in the wee hours – my bedside clock showed just after 3AM – to the sound of my husband snoring beside me.  “Wait.  My husband is out of town.  I am awake, alone in the house, and someone is snoring!”  I was ill with fear for a good several moments before I realized that the darn bird was imitating my husband’s snore.  She had learned that after bedtime, under her cage cover, the only noises she could make that did not elicit a “bad bird, be quiet” were “night noises” - snoring punctuated by an occasional unfortunately realistic bout of flatulence.  Not pretty, and it scared me half to death!

Joey and Dutch live in the dining room!