Fooled by the pranks of a pitch-perfect parrot

SIR – My friend Peter Wood, the theatre director, had an African Grey parrot called Sid (Letters, January 26), who often accompanied him when he commuted from his house in Somerset to his flat in London.

Sid had a gift for mimicking telephone ringing tones, and would also – at the most inconvenient time – imitate Peter’s mobile, cackling when Peter was taken in.

Charlotte Graves Taylor

Oxford

SIR – A neighbour in the 1970s was a classical music impresario, and had a parrot with a wide musical repertoire. On one occasion, while the neighbour was giving Bernard Haitink a lift home from a concert, the parrot, sitting behind, launched into the Toreador’s song from Carmen. “Perfect pitch!” exclaimed the conductor, adding after a pause: “And tone”.

Dominic Weston Smith

Faringdon, Oxfordshire

SIR – I used to go to a pub where the bartender was called Jack and kept a mynah bird at the bar. Every time someone ordered a round the mynah bird would say, “And one for Jack” – to which Jack would reply, “That’s very kind of you; I will have a half of bitter.” He got plenty of free drinks. Peter Gilbert

Thames Ditton, Surrey

SIR – As a special constable in Shropshire I attended an address to investigate the attempted theft of a trailer. The homeowners invited me into a small kitchen, which contained a caged pet bird.

While I was learning about the case the following words emerged from the cage: “Help! Help! They’ve turned me into a budgie.”

Chris Jones

Mold, Flintshire

SIR – It is not only parrots that like to repeat what they hear.

When our daughter was young, her father used to drop her off at the childminders on his way to work. She was obviously listening to him on the way, and could later be heard saying, while playing with her friends or toys: “Go on, go on – it is a bloody roundabout, you know.”

Val Graves

Tilehurst, Berkshire