Alex and Me: How a Scientist and a Parrot Discovered a Hidden World of Animal Intelligence—and Formed a Deep Bond in the Process, by Irene M. Pepperberg

I've been called a "birdbrain" by friends, family members, and colleagues over my 69-year life. Now, after reading Irene Pepperberg's illuminating assessment of an African grey parrot's intelligence, Alex and Me (Harper, 2009), I've decided to take this as a compliment.

Alex and Me is both a report on pioneering scientific research by a talented academic about her very bright parrot, Alex, and the study of a moving 30-year friendship between a woman and a bird.

When Alex died suddenly in September 2007, the New York Times published an article titled "Brainy Parrot Dies, Emotive to the End." At the time of his death, Alex knew "his colors and shapes ... and more than 100 English words." He had the intelligence of a 5-year-old and had not yet reached his full potential. He was a television personality and perhaps the world's most famous talking bird. A video of him was on YouTube, and CBS news anchor Katie Couric devoted more time to Alex's untimely death than to major political stories. The prominent British newspaper The Guardian wrote, "America is in mourning. Alex, the African grey parrot, who was smarter than the average U.S. president, has died at the relatively tender age of 31."

Pepperberg was devastated by his death. She had grown up as an only child, and her first pet, which her father gave her as a birthday gift, was a baby parakeet, a budgie. Because Pepperberg's parents were emotionally distant and her family lived in a Brooklyn neighborhood with no other children, the parakeet, whom she calls "No-Name" in this book, became her best friend. After reading Dr. Doolittle as a young girl, Pepperberg daydreamed about learning to talk to animals and understand what they were saying.

Pepperberg was a precocious student who earned a doctorate in chemistry from Harvard. She married a fellow graduate student, who took a position at Purdue in 1977. Despite her academic success, she decided to pursue a new career path for which she had little knowledge and no training: human-animal communication. She took courses in bird behavior, child cognition, and language, and learned that no one else was working with birds. The species that learned the easiest and talked most clearly was the African grey parrot, so she bought Alex at a pet store in Chicago.

At Purdue for seven years, Pepperberg scrambled to get grant funding as an adjunct faculty member and to train Alex. Her first grant proposal was soundly rejected; the reviewers implied that a bird's brain could not master the language and cognitive skills she sought to demonstrate. But her second modest proposal was a success.

Pepperberg's students taught Alex to say, "I love you." Alex became somewhat bored and mischievous. He loved to chew things—telephone cables, lecture slides, and grant proposals, for example. He also became the lab's boss and slave driver: "want corn ... want nut ... wanna go shoulder ... wanna go gym." He also began to say "I'm sorry" when he had misbehaved.

After her marriage and a temporary position at Northwestern came to an end in 1984, Pepperberg's academic vagabond life continued in Arizona. When she and Alex flew to Tucson, she purchased a ticket for him as Alex Pepperberg and ordered him a fruit plate to eat on the plane. The ticket agent was not amused.

In 1995, Pepperberg got a second African grey parrot, Griffin. Alex was to play the role of trainer for Griffin. When they met, Alex growled and gave his "Don't mess with me" signal. In training sessions with Griffin, "Alex often could not resist showing off. He'd sometimes give the right answer when Griffin hesitated. Or he'd tell Griffin, 'Say better,' which meant Griffin should speak more clearly.

After Pepperberg was denied promotion at the University of Arizona, she received the offer of her dreams: a year's appointment at MIT. She ultimately settled there for a longer period, and in 2000 she brought Alex and Griffin from Tucson to continue her research. She received a five-year offer as a research scientist just before Sept. 11, 2001; after the subsequent market crash in 2001, however, she lost the position, but the Alex Foundation provided enough funds to continue her research.

Alex continued to be a media favorite for his cognitive achievements, but he was a lot more than a "bird brainiac." He was bossy and obstinate. He was playful, as when he deliberately gave wrong answers. He was mischievous and affectionate.

On Sept. 5, 2007, as she turned out the lab lights, Alex said to Pepperberg, "You be good. I love you." "I love you, too," she replied. "You'll be in tomorrow?" "Yes," she said. That night Alex died.

Alex was an important part of the "revolution in animal cognition." Together, Alex and Pepperberg did pioneering scientific work and had a memorable relationship.

Related resources

• Irene Pepperberg, The Alex Studies: Cognitive and Communicative Abilities of Grey Parrots (Harvard University Press, 2002). This book reviews two decades of Pepperberg's work with Alex.
• Mark Bittner, The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill: A Love Story ... with Wings (Harmony Books, 2004; also a documentary movie by the same title). Helping feed and care for these parrots taught Bittner, a hippie guitarist, as much about himself as it did about the birds.
• Joanna Burger, The Parrot Who Owns Me: The Story of a Relationship (Random House, 2001). Burger, an ornithologist, warns her readers: "If you choose to share your life with these birds and if fortune smiles on you, they respond by giving you their love for life."
• View a delightful video of Griffin, one of Pepperberg's parrot team, meeting with an elementary school class, at http://quicksilverscreen.com/watch?video=42569.