From the brains behind Brains-On, this is the Moment of Um.

Moment of Um comes to you from APM Studios. I'm Shayla Farson.

When I was a kid, my family had an African gray parrot named Baby.

She had sleek gray feathers, a hooked black beak,

and a fiery red tail. And like lots of other African gray parrots, baby was very smart. She could

perfectly imitate all kinds of sounds. She used to do this impression of the microwave beeping

that was so good. And she also did a perfect impression of my mom calling for me in the morning when the school bus pulled up outside.

And when my family got a puppy, baby the parrot would toss some of her bird food on the ground and mimic my mom's voice.

Like, hey puppy, hey puppy, come here, puppy.

Just to get the pup to come over.

Lots of other parents have this incredible ability to talk and mimic sounds, but I've always

wondered, how do they do it and why? Lucinda had a question about this too.

Hi, my name is Lucinda, and I am from Newville, Kentucky.

And my question is, how do parrots mimic other sounds or creatures?

They have a couple of special things that make them really, really good at mimicking.

My name is Amanda Bender.

I'm a zoological manager in the bird department at the St. Louis Zoo.

And my job primarily helps to manage the keeper staff who take care of the birds every day here at the zoo.

So parrots are really unique, and most people know that they have that amazing ability to not only mimic sounds, but to even mimic, like, human voices and all sorts of funny things that they hear.

Parrots, like many other birds, you know, they're very social.

They're using songs and different vocalizations to help them communicate.

So, parrots, kind of like humans, you know, humans have like a loose box or a larynx.

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