The Turning Point

During 1991 I noted Puck’s 81^st through 975^th words! I was tape recording him regularly from July onwards, and this helped immensely in trying to document his “gift.” I was prodded into a more diligent chronicler’s role by a frightening experience on July 15^th when Puck flew away as Mark left the house with the bird unknowingly on his head! Puck had flown to and landed on him, just as he stepped out the door. High winds then carried Puck across and up the street, where he disappeared in the foliage of some tall trees. I wasn’t at home and Mark panicked, frantically dashing along the street, calling out the bird’s name repeatedly. Up and down the street he went, doubly upset at what my reaction would be to his causing the loss of precious Puck! Fortunately, Puck was found within an hour on a neighbor’s patio, waddling towards a rabbit cage. Ah, a cage, he probably thought, safety at last! At any rate, this episode propelled me into a more concentrated documentation of Puck, in case anything untoward should happen in the near future. Perhaps I couldn’t assume that I would have my pet for eight or nine years, a normal parakeet lifespan!

I bought a tape recorder, the speed of which I could slow down by 20 percent. This was necessary because Puck’s voice was tiny and he spoke very rapidly. Sometimes I would have to replay a phrase three or four times before I could decipher all the words. I had hung a small sound-activated microphone above the cage, so that either chirps or words would get recorded. I usually only recorded when we humans were going to be out of the house, so that as much background noise as possible would be eliminated. When an entire 1-or 1 ½-hour tape was recorded, I began the tedious transcription process. Since my equipment was inexpensive, sound quality was rather poor. I had to listen to lots of bird language amidst the English language, and frequently Puck’s pecking at his penguin activated the recorder, and this noise went on interminably. On average, a one hour tape probably took three hours to transcribe.

I maintained an alphabetized list of Puck’s vocabulary as well as a chronological list. In a loose-leaf binder I reserved one page (initially) for each letter of the alphabet. I could fit three columns of words on each page. In most instances I also noted the date the word was heard and whether it was on tape. In 1991 I recorded 22 hours of Puck’s “speech,” and wrote my first article about him. At year’s end I also made a video of Puck.

I might mention here that many words spoken by Puck were never taped. The recorder was a huge aid, however, because I could only hear a fraction of what he uttered “live.” Unless the house was totally quiet, and I was nearby and unoccupied, his words were lost. If the radio was on, or if kitchen tap water was running, or if I was preoccupied, his words were not heard. The best periods for hearing Puck “live” were early morning over a cup of coffee, and after dinner when I was nearby reading. I tried to always keep paper and pen handy so that I could immediately jot down what I heard. I found that if I tried to remember an hour later, I frequently couldn’t. During this period, there were usually whole phrases, or several consecutive phrases, that needed to be noted.

I might also add that I probably only taught Puck about 50 words of the total he mastered. It became evident early on that he was learning without instruction, simply garnering words from our conversations, the radio, and far more limitedly, television. Sometime in 1990 I had begun to leave the radio on whenever we left the house. I maintained this procedure pretty consistently unless I was going to tape him that particular day. I noticed that he loved the stimulation of speech and music, so I tried to alternate between talk and music stations. If music, I chose those stations which played popular ballads so that Puck could pick up lyrics. Puck was rather catholic in his musical tastes, seeming only to dislike jazz.