Original Article: https://blog.theanimalrescuesite.greatergood.com/instagram-sonny/

Sonny is a double yellow head Amazon parrot with a sweet personality. Her Instagram account, sweetparrotsonny, is gaining followers every day, and it’s easy to see why.

Owner Elisa Modolo says she was raised with pet canaries.

“But the canaries were less interactive than Sonny,” she says. “They didn’t speak. I actually was much more of a cat person than a bird person.”

A lot changes when a bright bird like Sonny comes into your life.

“She’s very sweet, but also sassy,” Elisa says. “She knows what she wants. And she knows how to get it.”

Elisa learned just how expressive and intelligent a bird can be when she met Sonny for the first time.

“Sonny asked for a cracker, so we gave her a cracker,” Elisa says. “She brought it to her water bowl. she dipped it a couple of times to make sure it was moist enough, and then she went back to her food bowl to eat it.”

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Elisa and Sonny spend a lot of time together. The parrot will warm up to visitors with some time, but “she doesn’t manipulate them as she does with me,” Elisa says.

“It’s usually me and her. She gets a bit more affectionate and she gives kisses,” Elisa says. “She knows that I will relent and give her crackers or pistachios, which is what she loves.”

Sonny is a pretty persuasive bird.

“She knows that I would melt like snow in the sun when she gives me kisses,” Elisa says. “So, she says, ‘Give me a kiss. Give me a kiss.’ And then she proceeds to give me kisses. Right after that she goes, ‘Sonny want a cracker.’ So, she knows what she wants and she knows how to get it.”

Elisa has been Sonny’s full-time caretaker since 2016, when she married her husband.

“It looks like we have bonded very well,” Elisa says. “Sonny lets me pet her, which she does not allow anyone else to do, not even my husband, her original bird sitter.”

Sonny was originally purchased in New York by a friend of Elisa’s husband.

“He was planning on keeping Sonny, but changed jobs,” Elisa says. “For work reasons, he was not able to be at home enough to properly care for a pet.”

Elisa’s husband had started bird sitting Sonny in 1996, so his friend felt good leaving Sonny with him in 1999, by which time Sonny was about 10 years old.

Now in her mid-30s, Sonny has had a lot of time to pick up on human conversations. She continues to impress and entertain her parents with her growing vocabulary.

“She comes out of the blue with the right thing to say,” Elisa says. “We had got a plushie of a parakeet. When she saw it, of course she was wary but then at a certain point, while looking at it, she went ‘Ah Duh.’ She had not said that before. She named her parakeet and now we’re calling it Ah Duh. ”

Sonny isn’t just talkative, she’s quick witted.

“We were driving in the car and she was staying on my lap in her travel cage,” Elisa says. “We moved from one state to another and the price of gas changed. So, my husband was pointing at the gas station and evidently he used a tone of voice that was excited or alarmed. Sonny recognized this.

“My husband went, ‘Oh my gosh, look at the price of of gas here.’ And Sonny, out of the blue, came up with ‘Oh my god. No way.’ Perfectly clear,” she continues. “We almost went off the road, it was very funny. It was perfectly timed.”

Sonny caught on to the tone that was being used, Elisa says, which is most often followed up with “Oh my god. No way!”

There’s no denying Sonny is one special bird. Follow her on Instagram and watch a few of her videos — you may be saying the same!

Source: The Animal Rescue Site Blog