Talking, or even imitating sound, is not just a simple matter of opening and closing the mouth, as some people believe. A complex system is required for this action to take place, and all parts of this system must be synchronized in perfect working order. Birds with a talent for sound mimicry enjoy all of these requirements and demonstrate their ability in extraordinary ways.

Some of these species have a talent rarely found in any other creature except man. The best example of this are parrots, which can imitate, in addition to human speech, a wide range of sounds that even humans can't duplicate convincingly-for example, as the creaking of a door, the cap being removed from a bottle, a ringing telephone, or a tune being whistled. This talent to imitate, observable in parrots and some other bird species, is not an ability that can be acquired by coincidence. For any living creature to imitate a sound it has heard, it needs to have complex physiological structures already in place. Particularly in the case of birds that can closely imitate the human voice in terms of tone, stress and expression, these structures must be very sophisticated.

For a bird to reproduce a word or a melody it has heard, it needs to have an appropriate physical structure. Its sense of hearing must be functioning perfectly, and it must be able to memorize the information received by the senses and the ability to conceptualize meaning in its own terms.

People are astonished the first time they hear a parrot say "Hello!" when the phone rings, ask "Who is it?" when the doorbell rings, or greet someone familiar by name. But even though it's an astonishing achievement for a bird to say even one word, many don't really give it due consideration. Over time, they may even come to see it as normal and commonplace.

For a long time, it was thought that parrots and other talking birds merely imitated, but recent research has shown these creatures to have remarkable mental abilities.

Not only does the bird see and recognize the person approaching; what's more, the bird knows how to react to a person it knows. It remembers-and reproduces-words it associates with that person. This is evident proof that the bird has an accurate memory. If we consider that some species of birds seem to understand questions they are asked and give a seemingly logical answer, the issue becomes even more complex. One important example of this is a trained grey parrot by the name of Alex. When he's presented with a red (rose) piece of paper and asked "What color?" he answers "rose."4 In later sections, we'll mention more of this parrot's skills in more detail.

A bird possessing such talents is a great wonder of creation, for birds and other animals do not have free will and reason, and do not share the human characteristics of thought, the ability to make conscious decisions and the determination to carry them out. The ability to talk and imitate sounds is taught by God to certain species of birds. These creatures do not talk because of their own rational thought, will or consciousness, but through God's inspiration. In a verse of the Qur'an, God conveys that He is supreme over all living creatures: "… There is no creature He does not hold by the forelock…" (Qur'an, 11:56) All the wondrous characteristics of birds that can imitate sounds are just part of the evidence God shows to man so we may witness the magnificence of His creation.

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• 4.Irene Maxine Pepperberg, The Alex Studies, Harvard University Press, England, 1999, pp. 46-47.