Bird brain: Malcolm Welshman's African Grey, Polly
Sorry Polly. But it’s got to be done,’ I murmured as my African Grey squawked, muffled by the towel in which she was wrapped. With trembling hands, I parted her feathers and injected anaesthetic.
As Polly slipped into unconsciousness, her frantic shrieks died away. I stretched her out on the kitchen table, plucked her neck and then disinfected it. There was a growth — an ugly mis-shapen raspberry of tissue — pressing on her windpipe. If I didn’t operate, she would slowly asphyxiate and I would lose 20 years of loyal companionship.
Choice? There was none.
Polly and I were fledglings when we first met. She was a bundle of grey feathers that growled and flapped within the confines of a rusty cage. I was a nine-year-old who had been living in Nigeria for just over a year and who wanted a parrot like all the other British Army families had.
‘Young master like this bird?’ said the trader as he dangled the cage in front of me, smiling and exposing stumps of red, betel nut-stained teeth.
‘Oh please, Daddy, please,’ I implored as my father propelled me away through the crowded market.
‘Masa, Masa,’ cried the trader, fearing a loss of sale. ‘To you Masa, special price - £10.’
Father continued to march. ‘Dis one fine bird,’ coaxed the wily old man, darting in front of us.
‘£5,’ said Father. The parrot became mine.
For many months, Polly was a frightened youngster. Soon, though, her pale grey eyes matured to a golden yellow, her broken quills were replaced by lighter grey flight feathers and her tail erupted into a sea of vermillion.
I spent weeks trying to coax her out of her cage. ‘Come on Polly,’ I’d whisper, placing a piece of banana just outside her open cage door. But she was never tempted; she merely opened her beak and hissed.
One day, Father thrust his hand into the cage thinking that Polly might hop on to it. Stupid move. She lashed out and bit him. ‘Drat,’ he said, snatching out his hand, which was dripping blood.
Family pet: Malcolm with his mother Murial and Polly in Nigeria
For Polly was not just a canny bird, but clever enough to mimic speech. It was the first indication that she was a remarkable bird — which is why it came as no surprise this week to read scientists have found African Greys capable of reasoning powers seen only in humans and apes.
But for all her cleverness, I was still very wary of her claws and beak — at least until the day I smashed the front of my aquarium. I was carrying it through the lounge when I knocked it against a door handle. The glass shattered. Out poured the fish, the weed, the snails. So, too, did my tears.
I dropped the aquarium on the settee and — howling with all the force a little boy could muster — ran across to Polly’s cage. Still blubbering, I didn’t stop to think and poked my finger through the bars. Polly’s head whipped up. Her beak caught the tip of my finger. But no bite. Just the gentle feel of her tongue on my skin as she kissed me.
From that moment, we were firm friends and her greatest delight was to waddle up my arm and, once on my shoulder, stuff regurgitated peanuts in my ear.
One day, she discovered the use of her wings. The sight of me leaving the room was too much for her. With a passionate screech, Polly was airborne. She homed in on my head and skidded across my scalp with needle-sharp claws. Fortunately, she later learnt to make more accurate landings on my shoulder. At meal times she would bomb across the dining room table, rippling the soup and depositing feathers in the gravy.
Sometimes I arrived home from school to find a parrot strutting down the drive to greet me. Once, I had my ankle tweaked by a waterlogged Polly who’d tracked me down in the shower.
‘It’s high time she had her wings clipped,’ said my father. But when he tried to winkle her out of her cage she wriggled free and skidded under the sideboard, from where she uttered her first word: ‘Drat!’
We were woken with ‘Wakey, wakey’. The Colonel’s wife was tickled pink to be greeted by a: ‘Wotcha mate!’ Her blush turned to crimson at the ‘You’ve got droopy drawers’ that followed, however.
When I reached the age of 11, Polly and I parted company as I had to return to England for school. But the holidays always meant a welcome return to Nigeria and a reunion with my parrot. ‘Wotcha mate!’ she’d exclaim, as if I’d been gone only a day instead of three months.
Suddenly, my father’s tour of duty was over. My parents flew back and Polly boarded a ship for a six-week cruise to the UK as part of her quarantine. When we reached home, Father swung the cage on to the pavement as Mother leaned from an upstairs window. Polly looked up and yelled: ‘Hello Muriel.’
We found her vocabulary had in fact increased to include a few choice seafaring phrases, and a ‘Hello sailor’ in a Liverpool accent.
Polly was housed in the family kitchen, where she soon picked up and imitated the sounds of daily life — only deafeningly magnified.
Her version of cutlery being tipped into a drawer was like scaffolding collapsing — filling the kettle, Niagara Falls. She did a masterly beer bottle sequence. At the sight of a bottle, she’d imitate several clinking together. A bottle opener elicited a loud ‘pssh’; pouring the beer produced a stream of glugs. As you drank, she swallowed and rounded off her act with a hearty belch.
We acquired a Maltese terrier which proved a source of delight for Polly. She’d imitate the doorbell and Yambo would skitter across the lino barking. ‘Go in your box, Yambo,’ she’d command. The little fellow obliged. ‘Sit Yambo,’ she’d order. The dog sat. Then she’d burst out laughing.
Polly outwitted Yambo — and the rest of us — time and time again, and was especially good at wheedling treats out of her indulgent owner.
She’d been taught the African word for food, which is ‘chop’. A portion of buttered toast was always on offer at breakfast time and Polly soon learnt the sequence for making the toast.
She would be waddling up and down her perch saying ‘chop’ sweetly in my tone of voice as soon as I took the bread out of the bin. One morning I decided to tease her and not give her a titbit. Toast made, I sat down and started to eat.
Up to that point, Polly had been saying ‘chop’, but — realising it was to no avail — her tone of voice changed. A gruff, demanding ‘chop’ in Father’s deep voice. Still no joy. I kept on crunching, ignoring her. She paused. And then, still in Father’s voice, came a loud emphatic ‘What’s the ruddy matter with you?’ I collapsed with laughter, choking on my toast. ‘Serves you right,’ she shrieked. What intelligence!
For 20 years, Polly had been a loyal, witty companion. Now here I was, a newly qualified vet about to operate on her, wondering whether she would survive to talk again. With the lump removed, I laid Polly in the bottom of her cage. As the anaesthetic wore off, she tried to clamber back onto her perch. At her fifth attempt, she made it and sat swaying alarmingly.
