大象传媒

Colourful birds of the rainforest and companions of pirates, parrots evoke contradictory images. They encompass a huge range of forms from the flightless lumbering kakapo of New Zealand to the diminutive and talkative budgerigar of Australia, the chatty African grey parrot to the garishly colourful macaws of South America.

We cast parrots as the clowns of the natural world; painted in many colours they appear mischievous but innocent, playful but intelligent. But has our anthropomorphism of parrots limited our true understanding of the family? In the words of Mark Cocker "parrots are held in cages, but they are trapped in our imaginations".