Parrots

• Parrots don't care how food smells. If it looks good, they'll eat it.
• Parrots, the most famous of all talking birds, rarely acquire a vocabulary of more than twenty words.
• Obesity is a problem among caged parrots.
• Parrots in New Zealand have been known to kill sheep.
• It's easier to teach a male parrot to talk than a female.
• Andrew Jackson bought his wife a parrot. She died. He left the parrot in Tennessee when he became president. He died. The parrot was brought to his funeral. It intermittently punctuated the ceremony with cuss words heard by all.

Parakeets

• Parakeets don't sing. They vocalize, but they don't sing.
• Parakeets frequently drop dead at the sound of Fourth of July firecrackers.
• How can you tell whether a parakeet is male or female? Look at the skin just above the beak. If it's blue, the bird is male. If pink or dark brown, female.
• You can knock the feathers off a parakeet with a loud noise. Or some feathers, anyway. So says a veterinarian.