This is Science of a Americans. Science quickly. I'm Karen Hopkins.

Lume kids say the most nonsensical things, like my son at the aquarium when he was two

four or three. Even sweeter are the sounds they make when they're just beginning to explore

their vocal capabilities. But human babies are not unique, at least when it comes to this

sort of inarticulate articulation. Because a new study shows that baby parrots also

no babble before they leave the nest. The findings appear in the journal, proceedings

of the Royal Society B, biological sciences. When baby humans are babbling, they're kind

of stringing a bunch of sounds together in sort of unintelligible ways, there's no identifiable

context. Carl Berg is an associate professor of biology at the University of Texas Rio

Grand Valley. He says parrot babble is really very similar.

Gibberish is a good descriptor. They're kind of mixing everything together and just seems

like they're regurgitating everything they've ever heard before.

Bergen, his colleagues, have been studying a species of parrot called the green-rumped

parrot lip in Venezuela. We've been intensively monitoring the population we're in our 35th

year. The researchers positioned video cameras inside the bird's nests. But it took them

a while to notice the baby parrots running through their vocal warm-ups.

We initially missed it because when we first started filming inside the nest cavities,

you know, all the actions of all the interesting things seemed to be happening when the parents

would arrive. That prompts the babies to start clamoring for food. But when their parents

are away, the nestlings take turns napping, preening each other, and talking to themselves.

Oftentimes, the other siblings are asleep.

And they keep up this peeping and cheaping, even after those siblings have flown the

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