1996 VHS • Parrots, Look Who's Talking 1996 60 FPS

About

Parrots: Look Who's Talking is a nature documentary examining the intelligence, communication, and social behavior of wild and captive parrots. The program opens with Flo, a yellow-naped Amazon parrot living in New York City who performs songs including Aretha Franklin. Major support is provided by Canon. The program is hosted by a narrator and shot on multiple continents. The central claim is that parrots possess intelligence comparable to chimpanzees and dolphins but exceed them in one crucial ability: human-like vocalization that makes their intelligence directly legible to people.

The program covers multiple wild parrot species in their native habitats. The Curranbin Sanctuary in Australia is the site of a feeding station where wild rainbow lorikeets congregate daily. The Amazon rainforest provides footage of macaws, including the world's largest parrot, the hyacinth macaw, documented in the Pantanal region of Brazil. Footage of African grey parrots in Zaire shows their daily gathering at elephant clearings to feed on mineral-rich clay. Wild populations in Africa are also shown interacting with farmers whose crops they damage. The program covers the complex pair bonding of parrots, their long incubation periods, and their nesting in locations including storks' nests. At the Irene Pepperberg laboratory in the United States, Alex the African grey parrot demonstrates shape and color categorization by correctly identifying objects when asked to name shapes or colors. Alex's correct response rates and his owner's training methodology are described in detail. The problem parrot section covers Tony van Megen's Parrot Refuge in Holland, which receives 250 problem parrots a year. The program closes with Flo performing again, and an extended sequence of captive parrots demonstrating vocabulary across multiple households. The tape runs approximately 57 minutes.

Human-made No record of this work says a model made it. What this means.

Archive

Internet Archive, in The VHS Vault

Licence or status

The Internet Archive states none for this item.

Credit

The Vista Group®

Language

English

Subtitles

English (automatic)

Who can watch

The archive gives no rating. Invisible Network shows it to Teens profiles and older, judged from its collection and subjects. How films are placed