--- title: Parrots, flamingos and the bird of prey show — a lesson of Mova's school · trees and pragmatics description: «Parrots, flamingos and the bird of prey show», a lesson of the biology course of Mova's primary school, sentence by sentence with dependency trees and pragmatics. It begins: A parrot says «hello» because in the wild it copies the calls of its flock to belong, and in a zoo or a home the people becom --- [Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/94-parrots-flamingos-and-the-bird-of-prey-show/) [home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/) / [Biology](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/) / Parrots, flamingos and the bird of pre… # Parrots, flamingos and the bird of prey show Lesson 94 of the biology course of Mova's primary school: 17 sentences, each with its syntax tree and pragmatics. The lessons are written for Mova, and their agreed trees are part of Mova corpus 0.4 (CC BY-SA 4.0). How Mova does on its tests: [the lesson at school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/school-run/biology/94-parrots-flamingos-and-the-bird-of-prey-show/). - [0](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/94-parrots-flamingos-and-the-bird-of-prey-show/0/) — A parrot says «hello» because in the wild it copies the calls of its flock to belong, and in a zoo or a home the people become its flock. - [1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/94-parrots-flamingos-and-the-bird-of-prey-show/1/) — Flamingos look as if they are doing everything wrong: they stand on one leg, eat with their heads upside down and are only pink because of what they eat, yet each habit has a good reason. - [2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/94-parrots-flamingos-and-the-bird-of-prey-show/2/) — At the bird of prey show an owl drifts over the crowd without a sound, a falcon drops onto a swinging lure, and a hawk comes back to the glove because it has learned the glove means food. - [3](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/94-parrots-flamingos-and-the-bird-of-prey-show/3/) — A vulture lands last, bald and scruffy, but it is one of nature's cleaners, eating dead animals before their germs can spread. - [4](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/94-parrots-flamingos-and-the-bird-of-prey-show/4/) — Cartoons bend these birds: Rio's Blu is a real kind of macaw, but Road Runner would lose a real race against a coyote, and real owls do not deliver letters. - [5](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/94-parrots-flamingos-and-the-bird-of-prey-show/5/) — Parrots copy sounds, including words, to fit in with their flock; an African grey parrot called Alex learned to name colours, shapes and numbers up to six. - [6](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/94-parrots-flamingos-and-the-bird-of-prey-show/6/) — Macaws have strong hooked beaks that crack nuts too hard for people to break by hand, and parrots also use the beak like a third foot to climb. - [7](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/94-parrots-flamingos-and-the-bird-of-prey-show/7/) — Macaws in the Amazon gather in hundreds at riverbank clay licks, because the clay gives them salt that is hard to find in the rainforest. - [8](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/94-parrots-flamingos-and-the-bird-of-prey-show/8/) — Big parrots can live 50 years or more, need lots of company and can scream loudly, so many pet parrots end up in rescue centres. - [9](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/94-parrots-flamingos-and-the-bird-of-prey-show/9/) — Flamingos often rest on one leg, even asleep; it takes almost no muscle effort for them, and the backwards-bending joint is really the ankle. - [11](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/94-parrots-flamingos-and-the-bird-of-prey-show/11/) — A flamingo feeds with its head upside down in the water, filtering tiny food through comb-like edges of its bill. - [12](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/94-parrots-flamingos-and-the-bird-of-prey-show/12/) — Owls fly almost silently thanks to soft fringed feather edges, and an owl can turn its head about three quarters of the way round, but not a full circle; most owls hunt at night, and no owl can be trained to carry letters. - [13](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/94-parrots-flamingos-and-the-bird-of-prey-show/13/) — In a dive the peregrine falcon is the fastest animal, reaching more than 300 km per hour, and peregrines nest on tall city buildings, which are high like their wild cliffs and full of pigeons to eat. - [14](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/94-parrots-flamingos-and-the-bird-of-prey-show/14/) — Birds of prey are trained with food rewards and come back to the glove because it pays; the thick leather glove protects the trainer from the talons. - [15](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/94-parrots-flamingos-and-the-bird-of-prey-show/15/) — Vultures have bare heads that stay clean when they feed inside dead animals, and their strong stomach acid kills germs that would make other animals ill. - [16](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/94-parrots-flamingos-and-the-bird-of-prey-show/16/) — Blu in the film Rio is a Spix's macaw; that bird was declared extinct in the wild in 2019, and birds bred in captivity were reported released in Brazil from 2022. - [17](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/94-parrots-flamingos-and-the-bird-of-prey-show/17/) — A real roadrunner can run at about 30 km per hour, but a real coyote can run about twice as fast. - ← previous: [The aviary: the walk-through tropical house](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/93-the-aviary-the-walk-through-tropical-house/) - next →: [The nocturnal house: night animals by red light](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/95-the-nocturnal-house-night-animals-by-red-light/) - ↑ back to [Biology](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/)