In Daventry, England, there lives an intelligent 17-year-old African grey parrot named Jazz, who loves to impersonate people, noises, smoke alarms, and any other sounds it finds fascinating. Late in 2018, Jazz’s owner had a good laugh over its amazing talents—which brought the local fire brigade to his doorstep.
On Nov. 14, 2018, the sounds of a smoke alarm were heard resonating across a residential building in Windsor Close several times. Thinking it might be a building ablaze, the alarm company alerted Northamptonshire Fire and Rescue Service.
At around 3:45 p.m., firefighters responded to the emergency call and rushed to the home of 63-year-old steel construction worker Steve Dockerty, the bird’s owner, to investigate.
When Dockerty heard the crew banging on his door, he was baffled.
The firefighters found no sign of fire at Dockerty’s home. Nor was there any sound coming from his alarm, either. They checked and cleaned out the smoke alarms, yet strangely, the beeping continued all the while.
The firefighters were stunned when they at last discovered it was actually one of Dockerty’s pet parrots, Jazz, doing its impression of the smoke alarm.
“Then we heard the noise coming from Jazz and that’s how we figured it out it must have been him,” Dockerty said, according to METRO. “He’s a cheeky sod and likes to imitate things. He imitated the smoke alarm so well that they called the fire brigade.”
Dockerty had adopted Jazz 12 months prior to keep his other parrot, 16-year-old Kiki, company.
“The birds will literally imitate anything to get my attention and Jazz is really good at impressions. Jazz will even say ‘what are you doing?’” he said.
“They tend to make noises when I’m out of the room. Everyday there is something new with them.”
Apparently, Dockerty’s smoke alarm was falsely triggered the first time, and that was what had set off the mischievous imitator, who kept up the alert.
The clever parrot’s excellent impersonation of the smoke alarm ended up causing confusion.
“In some properties, smoke alarms are monitored by an alarm-receiving company,” watch Commander Norman James said in a statement. “When an alarm is activated, they endeavor to make contact with the resident to establish whether there is a fire or if it is a false activation.
One spokeswoman told BBC, “We’ve never had that happen before...it was amazing.”
Despite the wasted trip, though, the firefighters took it in good humor—everyone was glad it was just a “false alarm.”
“We had a good laugh about it,” Dockerty told Rumble.
“It certainly made the crew smile and although it was a false alarm because there was no actual fire, we were thankful that the householder—and of his two parrots Jazz and Kiki—were safe,” Commander James added.
“And if you hear a neighbor’s smoke alarm going off and you’re not safely able to establish whether or not there is a fire, please call 999—we would rather respond to a false activation than not respond to an actual fire.”
Jazz had a good chuckle, too, during all the confusion and excitement.
“All the while, Jazz was sitting in his cage laughing his socks offs,” Dockerty added.
A cheeky parrot, to be sure!
It’s no surprise that this bird has such a great talent.
Alex, one of the world’s smartest parrots, also belonged to the same breed; the African Grey. He was “able to participate in some forms of inter-species communication,” according to a report by the British Library.
The bird that baffled most people not only learned how to mimic repetitive words but was also able to communicate complex thoughts.
According to All Things Interesting, Alex had a vocabulary of 150 words and could easily differentiate between seven different colors, while being able to recognize at least 50 different objects.
