In which she admires artistic talent

[zeborah]

Having, last night, watched Silence in the Library and Forest of the Dead, I think I am qualified to judge that, for the good of all mankind, Steven Moffat should be locked up, chained to a desk with suitable pens/paper/keyboard/whatever, and forced to write Dr Who for the remainder of his natural life.

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In other news, on Friday night I witnessed Boots singing a duet with a starling. I swear I'm not making this up. The starling was on the fence and Boots was on the back of the couch looking out the window at it. The starling peeped a few notes; Boots squeaked a few squeaks. They took turns like this while I gaped. Just as I was starting to wonder if my webcam would pick up the sound from this distance, the starling flew away and Boots came to curl up on my lap again, comme si de rien n'était.

Comments

[heleninwales.livejournal.com]

Perhaps the starling was looking for more sounds to add to its vocabulary of chirps? Quite a few bird species are mimics, according to a radio programme I heard the other week.

Does Boots talk to you? I could hold "conversations" with both our cats, much to G's amusement.

[zeborah]

I wasn't surprised at the starling chirping (it was sunset, birds chirp) as at Boots responding to it. I've even heard Boots make that particular sound before -- I haven't pinned down its meaning yet but it's normally something like "Oy!" -- but never so many, and never in conversation with a bird.

I have had conversations with her myself, but they normally consist of her increasingly plaintive mews of "Feed me?" (she has a large vocabulary designed to express this concept) and my reassuring babytalk. She doesn't converse casually.

She does understand me when I tell her to get down from something or not to jump up on something. She doesn't always obey (though she often does) but she definitely understands: I can see the pouting in her eyes. Mind, much of my communication with her is not in human language; I much doubt that she understands any English words.

[heleninwales.livejournal.com]

I think Fluffy (semi-longhair of humble origin, originally a farm kitten) picked up the "talking" habit from Catlet (Siamese seal point).

Catlet never said "mew" or "miaow" and we did used to worry that when A was little, if the teacher said, "Make the sound of a cat," she'd reply, "Mwah-oo!", which was Catlet's usual conversational opening gambit. It did seem to mean "Greetings!" ("Mrrrrrp!" was the same thing in Fluffy dialect.)

We got into the habit of saying, "Mwah-oo!" back and it progressed from there.

[mjlayman.livejournal.com]

That happens here, although Shiva is using his "I want to kill that bird" noise, and it's usually a mourning dove.