Churchill's parrot still hurling insults at 104

[Winston]

Back page story in today's Jyllands-Posten.

Link

[Winston]

Hmm, the latest development according to a BBC Update is that experts are dismissing claims of the parrot having belonged to Churchill.

Experts quash Churchill bird rumours

Experts have dismissed the claim that a 104-year-old foul-mouthed parrot once belonged to the war leader Winston Churchill.
Charlie, a blue and yellow macaw, is spending his twilight years in a garden centre in Surrey but his owner Peter Oram says the bird used to live with Sir Winston Churchill in his heyday.
Mr Oram claims his father-in-law Percy Dabner sold Charlie to the former Prime Minister in 1937 and then took the bird back after his death in 1965.
The bird now entertains customers at the Heathfield Nurseries, in Reigate, with a string of obscene anti-Nazi tirades, which Mr Oram claims Charlie picked up from Churchill.
But the Churchill family have questioned Mr Oram's story and historians have said they are unsure if the leader ever owned a parrot.
Staff at the National Trust's Chartwell property, Churchill's former country home in Kent, said they had conducted a thorough search of records and photographs but could find no evidence of him ever owning a parrot.
Judith Seaward, marketing manager at Chartwell, said: "We really looked and looked and know he had a budgerigar and all sorts of other animals.
"He loved animals, he had dogs, cats, pigs - but there's no record of a parrot.
Standing by the bird
"We have searched what we've got here and spoken to members of the family who I really thought would have known."
Staff at the nurseries were standing by the bird on Tuesday and defending his claim to fame.
Sylvia Martin, Heathfield's nursery manager, said: "He definitely did belong to Churchill.
"My boss Peter Oram's father-in-law sold the parrot to Churchill and when he died they were asked to go back to Chartwell and collect the birds and brought them away."
"When he died they were asked to go and collect some birds and Charlie was one of them."

Maybe this was too good to be true after all.

But I still say it's one cool parrot for continuing to bash the enemy on a daily basis.

[Provost Harrison]

Originally posted by Ecthelion
no parrott gets to 104. lies.

There is only one way to tell. Chop it in half and count the rings

[Boris Godunov]

Macaw's can live to be up to 80 years old, which is still surprising, but I find the 104 claim preposterous.

[Adalbertus]

Provost Harrison,

You are the biologist. You have to know.

[Seeker]

A bunch of monks in Korea once told me they had an 800 year old carp in a pool at their temple.

It was really big and had huge rolling blind eyes.

Even if it isn't true it definitely fits the Churchill legend.

Why did you brits vote him out anyways? He's the only one who could've kept the commonwealth together.

[Winston]

For the record, they did vote him back in 6 years later, and he stayed on as PM till he was 81. Churchill was continually re-elected to the House of Commons, and resigned himself at last in 1964 at the age of 90. He died six months later.

[Odin]

I saw her on CNN, not too bad for 104!

Here is factoid I heard. The oldest goldfish ever lived to be 46. It was so old that his scales had turned silver. And I thought my 5 year old male goldfish is over the hill.

[Alexander's Horse]

Parrots are very long lived, I know that much. You could easily pass a cockatoo or galah down through the family. If I got a young bird now it would probably outlive me.

[Tiamat]

We had a friend who wanted to purchase an African Grey parrot and he had to go through special classes since they bond with the owner and they really stressed to him that this was going to be at least a 70 year committment due to their longivity.

[Alexander's Horse]

Cockatoos are brilliant talkers - some family friends had one called Ben, a white sulphur crested one, who could exactly mimic every person in the house. It was a noisy household and the bird picked up every call. It got to the stage where people had to check if someone was calling them or if it was just the bird. It was uncanny.

The mimicry btw is partly related to boredom. The bird amuses itself that way. It's also a bonding thing of course.