by Diane Grindol and Tom Roudybush, M.S.

Two authors have teamed up to write this book titled Teaching Your Bird to Talk. The two of them have plenty of experience with birds.

The first chapter is a “must read” for someone just thinking about bringing a bird into the family. All to often, the idea of having a pet that can talk to you, overshadows the time and commitment required to look after this pet.

To help us understand a little about talking, they give information about how and why birds make sounds. Birds that make sounds all year round instead of just at breeding times may be possible good talkers.

If a talking bird is what you are looking for, the chapter Who Talks and Who Doesn’t will be of interest to you. It is also expained that not every bird in the talking list will talk, but they have the potential to talk. The birds that talk clearly are identified as well as the birds that simply do not talk. Although parrots are the most common talking birds, there is also a list of non-parrot birds that are known for talking ability.

The chapter Parrots Jump Into The Conversation contains input from several people who wrote in about conversations with their pet birds and is a lot of fun to read.

The Model/Rival Training Technique chapter explains how this method of training is used and this is the way that Alex, the famous African Grey Parrot belonging to Dr. Pepperberg was trained.

Of course, the whole book is not just about teaching your bird to talk. There is wonderful advice on general pet bird care, solving problems, playing games with your bird, and what to do if your bird turns out to be a non talker.

This book has good basic information for the beginner in bird care or ownership as well as advanced information for those who have experience with birds.

You can find this book at

Amazon.com – Amazon.ca – or Avian Publications.


I found some wonderful parrot t-shirts at Choice Shirts