This story is truly for the birds, y’all!
Whether you’re traveling or doing a staycation, going to your favorite zoo or wildlife park is sometimes a favored option, especially if you have kids.
Lincolnshire Wildlife Park, which opened in the early 1990s, is such a place. Located on the east coast of England, about 131 miles north of London, the wildlife charity park is known for its collection of mammals, reptiles and birds. It’s also home to the UK’s largest collection of parrots; they have about 1500 of them.
The park frequently takes in new parrots and before they put them on display, keeps them isolated for a time. In mid-August, they got five new African grey parrots all at once, so they were in isolation together. They were all in separate cages but in the same room.
The parrots, Billy, Eric, Tyson, Jade and Elsie, apparently knew a slew of curse words when they arrived and would talk a literal blue streak. Staff would wind up laughing, which only encouraged them to cuss some more. Park chief executive Steve Nichols told The Independent:
“The more they swear the more you usually laugh which then triggers them to swear again.
“But when you get four or five together that have learned the swearing and naturally learnt the laughing, so when one swears, one laughs and before you know it, it just got to be like an old working men’s club scenario where they are all just swearing and laughing.”
This wasn’t the first time they had such bawdy birds, but it was the first time they had so many at once.
The park recently reopened for the first time since COVID hit, and it was the first time they were able to put the five parrots on display.
“Literally within 20 minutes of being in the introductory we were told that they had sworn at a customer and for the next group of people, all sorts of obscenities came out,” said Mr. Nichols.
Fortunately, most people didn’t seem to be upset about it. “When a parrot tells you to ‘f-— off’ it amuses people very highly,” Nichols continued. “It’s brought a big smile to a really hard year.”
Although the (mostly adult) customers were OK with it, the park knew that kids tended to visit on weekends. So the decision was made to put the birds in an “off shore enclosure,” where they’d be surrounded by other parrots. The park hopes the other birds will positively influence them (I hope it’s not the other way around LOL!).
When the 5 are again brought “on stage,” it will be in separate areas of the park, so they won’t “set each other off.” That way, if they do start to let loose, “it is not as bad as three or four of them all blasting it out at once.”
Feature Photo: Needpix.com
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This post first appeared on Your Mileage May Vary
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