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Barney & Me

When we were chartering our schooner, Satori, in the Virgin Islands from 1977- 1991, we had one of the few traditional gaff-rigged vessels. She was without modern amenities like refrigeration and electricity. We had big ice boxes that we had constructed with 4" foam insulation. Over the bunks were small, battery-driven lights that allowed you to read in bed, rather than use the kerosene lanterns that we had left California with six months before. Our stereo also ran off batteries, which were charged by solar panels. No television. No radio, other than the marine band for communication with other boats and weather reports. For entertainment, we had Barnacle Bill.

Barnacle Bill is a yellow-napped Amazon parrot. I bought him in 1979 on a trip back home to see my folks. He was born in San Diego, and was six months old when he became mine. He had just come off spoon feeding. The family he was born into raised parrots, macaws and had a backyard full of chickens. Barney couldn’t speak, but Donna said his ability to cluck like a chicken (a sound parrots normally wouldn’t make) meant he would be able to learn to speak English.

We started with "hello" and within a few months he could say not only hello, but "Ahoy matie, welcome aboard Satori." He also called, "Onna" for Donna, which is what her top bird called her, unable to say D’s. Even though Barney couldn’t talk when he lived with her, he could, and did, remember her name once he learned to speak.

On a honeymoon charter, Barney took up the kissing sound and saying, "I love you" within the week. Ed and I always used hand signals when I was on the wheel and he was at the bow (anchoring or entering a new anchorage) so we wouldn’t have to try to yell across 60’ of deck in the wind, over the roar of a 371 GM diesel. Yelling crews often misunderstood one another, which led to disagreements. Hand signs kept everything peaceful.

Barney’s cage was right next to the companionway ladder, with the engine right below the floorboards. The bird could see me at the helm, but not Ed at the bow. On one charter in his first few months aboard, I needed to get Ed’s attention. I yelled, "Ed!" but he didn’t hear me. All of our guests yelled, "Ed!" Barney watched from his perch, then yelled, "Ed" really loud, in my voice. We all burst out laughing as Ed arrived at the cockpit to see what was wrong. He didn’t believe Barney had said his name. At the end of the week, after the guests had gone, Ed and I were getting ready to go ashore for dinner. He was soaping up in the shower (a hand cranked shower!) and I was in the stateroom right next to the head (as a bathroom on a boat is called), fixing my hair. Suddenly a very loud voice screamed, "ED!" from the main salon. As Ed raced by me covered in soap suds, I laughed and said, "Wasn’t me!"

In the mornings, as I arrived at the galley to make breakfast, baking goodies and making coffee before our guests got out of their bunks, Barney would whisper, "Good Morning." I knew not to answer or he would start chattering and wake everyone. As soon as our guests began to rise, he would whisper "Good morning," and if someone responded, Barney would say, in the most cheerful of voices, "GOOD MORNING! Do you like your breakfast? I LOVE breakfast! Sunflower seeds, raisins, OH BOY, BREAKFAST!" Which he promptly received!

Within the week’s cruise, he would mimic the most distinctive laugh of the guests, sending them into repeated gales of giggles. He learned, "Hook ‘em horns" from a group of Texans, which promptly led to "Whoo, pig, soo-ee" and "Rock chalk, J Hawk, KU" from sports enthusiasts from Arkansas and Kansas! If he saw you eating anything that smelled good to him (hot crab sandwiches are his all-time favorite, but anything with cheese will do) he would say, "Good, uh?" Now he’s added, "Can I have a bite of that?" to the question.

In eleven years he learned 200 words and could sing five songs, multiple verses. His name song, "Who's that knocking at my door, who's that knocking at my door, who's that knocking at my door, cried the fair young maiden? It’s only me from over the sea, I’m Barnacle Bill the sailor!" was his first. We didn’t need TV—Barney was our entertainment center.

When I had Lyric, Barnacle Bill got jealous of all the attention I’d given him being transfered to her. Instead of holding it against Lyric, he got really mad at me. He became Ed’s bird, trying to bite me if I got too close. If Ed is out of town for a week, he’ll tolerate me, but otherwise he is Ed’s bird.

When Ed went to work in town eight years ago, Barney began to yell more in the evenings when we are home. He needs and demands attention. We know parrots are social animals, so we move him from room to room so he can see Ed, and he is usually happy. He doesn’t talk nearly as much as he did, but sometimes gets on a roll and says much of what he knows. He is very much like a 2-year-old child who needs constant interaction. He asks Ed for a head scratch, and even will allow me to give him one at times.

Barney has shown me that parrots can think, and do know what they are saying. I just read Alex and Me: How a Scientist and a Parrot Uncovered a Hidden World of Animal Intelligence—and Formed a Deep Bond in the Process by Irene M. Pepperberg. I’d read of her work with Alex, an Africa Gray parrot, back in the early 80’s. Alex not only could talk, he could vocalize the color, shape and material of objects, and how many of each there were. He could put together ideas, and learn from interaction—not just mimic words. When a student helper took him to the restroom and put him on a shelf by the mirror while she went into the stall, Alex noticed himself. "What’s that?" Alex asked. "That’s you. You’re a parrot." Alex looked some more and then said, "What color?" "Gray. You’re a gray parrot, Alex." That’s how Alex learned the color gray.

Alex combined the words cherry with banana to call a red apple "Ban-erry" before he learned its real name, and when bored with repeating answers (for statistics sake in scientific studies) he would refuse to say the color of items, saying "green" for the felt on the tray or "tray" and bite it.

When asked to label colors with new objects, he could say the correct color, shape or material 85% of the time. When Alex refused to say a correct answer and was told he would have to go to time-out, he immediately said the correct answer, and "I’m Sorry! Come here!" He harassed new parrots when they were added to the studies, telling them to speak clearly or shouting out the answer before they could. Finally, his workers realized Alex could help them train the others. When they added Griffin, a baby African gray who learned the color "green," Alex would respond "bean."

Alex could add objects and tell you the number, even knowing the Arabic numerals. When he was asked, "What color 5," if there was no same colored objects that added up to five, he would say "None," a concept humans didn’t have (of zero) until the 1600’s. Alex could tell the difference between same, smaller, bigger, and different. If presented with a tray with 3 large yellow blocks, and a small blue refrigerator number 5 and asked which was bigger, he would answer that the blue 5 was bigger—understanding that the numeral represented 5 things! He would say to Irene as she left the lab each day, "You be good. I love you." And she would say she loved him, too. On their last day together, after that exchange, he asked, "You’ll be in tomorrow?" and she said yes, she would be in tomorrow. He died in the night, 30 years old.

Parrots can live to be 80—but they need stimulation, friendship, and interaction. The wonderful aspect of this book is that the author was able to prove that animals are thinking, feeling, creatures—not separate from us by as much as previously believed.

I have always "known" that we are connected to everything on a level we cannot see, feel, hear or touch—we are one with the all that is, as are our pets, as is all of creation. As Ms. Pepperberg says on pages 222-223: "The most profound lesson that Alex taught us concerns the place of Homo sapiens in nature…. We are not superior to all other beings in nature. The idea of humans’ separateness from the rest of nature is no longer tenable. Alex taught us that we are a part of nature, not apart from nature. The "separateness" notion was a dangerous illusion that gave us permission to exploit every aspect of the natural world—animal, plant, mineral—without consequences… There is a oneness in nature in the sense of interdependence…there is just one Creation, one Nature, one good, full, complete Idea, made up of individuals of all shapes and designs, all expressing their oneness with one God. We are not different because we look different, but we all reflect the eternal beauty and intelligence of one Creation in our own peculiar way."

Knowing Barnacle Bill has been a link for us in that knowing, in being a part of creation.

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