How tame can a budgie be? By Braam Le Roux See Picture. For those of you who's been reading 'On the Wing' for a long time, you might remember an article about a budgie that that was taught to speak at a very early age. (the article was written about two years ago).  Well, our budgie is now 4 years old and I've been asked to write a follow-up, so I hope you enjoy it. We got our budgie from a well known budgie breeder in the border area, Dave Auld.  It is a green Spangle, and our family just adored it.  We called him Bangles and he became one of the family.  Bangles started talking at the young age of just over 3 months…. Yes, it's true!  He was more out of his cage than in, so he was spoken to almost all day and all night long.  It is in fact quite funny, as when he goes to sleep, he actually carries on talking for quite some time, with his head tucked beneath his wing.  His talking gets quieter and quieter until he eventually falls asleep. The interesting thing about budgies is that if you stop saying a certain phrase or word, then they eventually forget it.  Bangles could say "pack your bags and go".  When the advert stopped, we never worried about saying it anymore, and the next thing we noticed was that Bangels stopped saying it as well.  So it is the phrases that keeps on being repeated that they remember. When we want to teach him a new word or phrase, we will repeat it over and over.  He is so cute, as he will sit on your shoulder and talk with you and even repeat some of the things we say.  He sometimes hangs on the front of our shirt with his beak pushed against our mouth listening and talking.  As soon as you say something new, he will be quiet and then he'll just listen.  When you stop talking, he bumps you with his beak as if telling you to go on talking.  It takes about 3 weeks to teach him a new phrase. We counted all the words and phrases he says and at the moment he can say 24 phrases and 33 different words.  He repeats a lot of words, i.e. Braam ry fiets…. Braam speel computer…… Braam soek koffie.  (we are Afrikaans, so naturally he'll speak Afrikaans)  He does say "Bangies naughty boy".  Bangles will also let you know when he wants to come out of his cage.  He will start running up and down his perch, then he'll start doing 'summersaults' by holding on to the cage with his one claw and then turning his body completely around in a summersault.  If we still ignore him, he'll go to the top of his cage and slide down to the bottom (upside down).  He will then try to open the cage door while hanging upside down! Bangles loves food!  He eats anything from biltong to post toasties.  He loves beer-shandies and always has a couple of sips, just about climbing into the glass to get his share!  At breakfast, he makes sure we take him out, as he knows it is time to eat cereal.  As soon as we sit down for any meal or snack, Bangles will start his act to come out and join us in eating.  The only thing we keep far away from him is avocado, as it is deadly to budgies. We have also noticed that although he will forget words that's not repeated, he can remember other things.  He will remember where he has last played with his golf ball the night before.  When we put him on the floor, he will go directly to the place where he left it.  He loves playing 'soccer' using his beak and loves it when we play with him.  He actually runs to your feet, then back to the ball again, showing you he wants you to join him.  If we want him to climb out of his cage and he does not want to, we just throw a ball in the air and catch it, and he starts going up and down until we take him out.  If we kick the ball away from him, he runs after it with his tale wagging from side to side.  We've taught him to lie still on his back and even to do his 'poo' before sitting on our shoulder! Whenever anybody takes Bangles out and put him on the floor, that person will shout "BANGLES IS ON THE FLOOR!!!"  Then the rest of the family will know to be extra careful.  We keep his one wing short to make sure he can't fly away, as a budgie does not have a sense of direction and will not be able to fly back.  When Bangles is sitting on our shoulder, we sometimes forget about him and he will just sit there as if it is his perch.  We can work outside and he will be quite content. Well, there is so much to say about our 'baby', but just remember one thing.  They are just like children.  You can spoil them and they'll grow up being spoilt.  You can also teach them many things, although it takes a lot of time and dedication.  But they will give you endless pleasure.  After 4 years we love him more than when we got him and we still give him the same attention as in the beginning.