During the course of an outside broadcast the other day at the behest of BBC Radio Ulster, I interviewed a woman and her parrot. People who know me well are aware that I am no slouch when it comes to the art of talking to pet owners and their charges, but this encounter differed from others of its type in that neither the woman nor her feathered friend showed the slightest interest in communicating with me.

The woman was monosyllabic and the parrot took a lump out of my finger, but it takes more than that to deter a seasoned broadcaster. For all I know, there may have been perfectly valid reasons why the woman and her bird chose not to speak, especially as the parrot possessed a working knowledge of Portuguese in spite of never having been to the country of Pordygul (as we call it in Stroke City).

It’s not that I thought it was going to be easy. After all, I’m a man who has been twice told to f*** off, live on air, by two separate parrots of differing religious persuasions. But I sniffed a story here and the reporter in me was not to be denied.

Apparently the lady had acquired the parrot by normal means and formed a conventional relationship with the bird, during the course of which she spent long hours teaching the creature to say a few words in the English language that we all hold so dear.

In the fullness of time the parrot began to string words together into intelligible phrases. So far, so good. Alas, the bird was destined to disappear under mysterious circumstances and was eventually, though reluctantly, given up for dead. But this was no dead parrot. After the passing of a considerable period of time, a knock came to the door and there stood a member of the PSNI with the missing bird perched happily on his nattily uniformed arm.

But an awful truth emerged when the parrot was reinstated onto its home perch. When it opened its beak to speak it appeared to talk in tongues. The advice of educated strangers was sought and a conclusion reached that the exotic bird was indeed speaking fluent Portuguese.

In spite of much probing by me, the lady gave little away but her demeanour led me to suspect that she had a theory as to why her parrot was now speaking another language. However, she chose not to share this theory with me. If only she’d known my history as a hypnotiser of chickens, she may have confided in me. As a seasoned chicken baffler, I knew better than to speculate on the secret life of birds and let the matter gently drop.

I welcome any theories that readers may have. Just for the record, your normal chicken can be hypnotised by etching a straight chalk line on the ground and laying the bird on its side so that its eyeline coincides with the angle of the aforementioned chalk mark. Please do not try this at home. I know from bitter experience that the RSPCA take a dim view of it.

I foolishly mentioned this procedure on the radio one morning. The next day a man rang the programme and told me that he had successfully utilised my method to hypnotise one of his fowl. Problem was, he said, the chicken had now spent 24 hours lying on its side staring dismally along the chalkline. The creature was showing early signs of exhaustion. He sought advice as to how he would go about returning his bird to normality. I suggested that he erase the line with a damp cloth and take care to stand well clear.

This advice turned out to be timely as the chicken went berserk when the line was suddenly no longer part of its life. With an otherworldly squawk it headed, as all freed chickens do, for the nearest source of light.

Unfortunately, this happened to be the kitchen window. The fact that the window was closed at the time slowed the chicken down not a jot and on its way out the maddened bird managed to topple and destroy a large effigy of the Child of Prague ( a much-venerated Calick icon) with its furiously beating wings. The chicken was never seen again. May I repeat, do not try this at home with your own personal chickens. And just in case you’re wondering, the parrot bit me in Portuguese?

Originally published in the Belfast Telegraph