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Reviewed: The Parrot Who Owns Me, The Story of a Relationship (Random House, 2001)
This book practically jumped off the shelf at me and I hesitated only for mere moments before picking it up, taking it home and devouring it. Anyone who has ever shared their life with a parrot can relate to many of the situations in this book. The title says it all, as does Burger's "warning" on the book's final page, quoted below. You don't own a parrot; you choose to share your life with these birds and if fortune smiles on you, they respond by giving you their love for life. The book is full of examples of this, as the author relates tales of her personal experiences with her birds, mainly Tiko, her red-lored Amazon. Some examples prompted me to chuckle, others brought tears. Burger deserves a great deal of credit for having the courage to write about birds, their intelligence and the way we relate to them, as she does in this book. She is, after all, a world-renowned ornithologist, and like any scientific discipline, its establishment frowns on what it calls "non-scientific" approaches. Having spent three years in a Bachelor of Science program before switching to something I found more fulfilling , I can vouch for the reluctance of anyone trained in the scientific method to give credit to anything new or different that has not been tested empirically in a laboratory "X" number of times to "prove" they are "true." In fact, the only parts of the book I found somewhat tedious to read were the sections where she writes of scientific studies devoted to other bird species. Their inclusion in the book always served a purpose, but I am quickly bored by any amount of that type of writing. While Burger uses science in her approach to this subject, she also uses her intuition, her emotions, her experiences with wild and tame parrots, and, when it comes right down to it, her spirituality. That spiritual aspect is important, because there is a spiritual connection between humankind and nature, regardless of what many scientists would believe or have us believe. The result is a work that goes beyond the scientific, but also beyond the spiritual. It is greater than the sum of all those parts. I would recommend this book to anyone who is in a loving relationship with a parrot - and even more strongly to anyone who is considering sharing their life with a parrot. - Reviewed by John Geary "There is no such thing as owning a parrot. You can't have a parrot as a pet. A dog, certainly, a cat, maybe, but a parrot never. Quite the contrary; you are the pet, and parrots vary in their ability to make good masters. Be warned - being owned by a parrot is not for the faint of heart." - Joanna Burger This
review was published in The
Pet Pages Volume 1,
Issue2, 04/02. |
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General Information About African Grey Parrots Fiction
Non-Fiction
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