Did you know that starlings can talk?

I found this out long ago, about 30 years or so.

One day the door bell rang. It was a woman from next door. In her hands she had a little bird that was still so young it had not even all his feathers yet.

She gave it to me saying: "This one fell out of a nest, I guess. Since you are the owner of a canari bird I am sure you will know what to do with it". And than in a rush took off leaving me standing there with this little bird in my hands.

I took a closer look. My guess was that the little bird was a Blackbird. After installing the bird is a surrogate nest made of toilet paper I took a spade and went into my garden to catch a worm.

Carefully I opened the birds beak and put the worm in it. It was not a success. The little bird could not master it, the worm crawled out again.

I made a call to the local bird shelter for advice. They told me I had little chance of pulling the bird through and the was a big chance the little bird would die but that I could try it with canned meat for dogs or cats. It worked. I fed the bird with little pieces with a cocktail pricker. It was a smart bird; after 1 day it shouted when it saw me and opened his beak wide open. LOL he was shouting a lot.

Some weeks later I was a bit disappointed because it was not a Blackbird ( I had hoped it was a male blackbird because of the singing) but a starling. I knew I had to keep it. Birds raised by hand can not be released back in nature, the are to tame and can't survive.

We named the bird Gompy. It was very tame and we let him loose in the living room. It was a crazy bird. It had fear of other birds and worms but it loved spaghetti and the foam in a glass of beer.

A few months later i got up one morning and heard somebody say "Hello". It was the bird! He learned very quickly a large arsenal of short sentences. When he saw somebody eat he shouted "Gompy". When we did not give him something immediately he shouted again, but much louder as a spoiled child.

We have had this fun bird for 16 years. I was very sad when it finally died. Later I found out that a starlings are related to the Beo, a birds species that can learn to talk even better than parrots.

Above is one of the fun stories you can find on the APSense Pets Club