Plenty of small birds do not nest in tree cavities. Chipping sparrows[1] for example do not and are of similar size. Hummingbirds also do not.
That said, the going theory about why some birds choose to nest in cavities is lower mortality rate in their young. I take that more as no one really knows why one species does while another of similar size does not.
Another random observation is most large birds walk and smaller birds hop. That's not always true either, since blue jays hop and crows will walk and sometimes hop.
I would agree with that in most cases. They treat them like their personal house, unless the owner decides to reinforce their use as a form of punishment. Not really any different than building a dog house for a dog.
If you're referring to keeping parrots in cages outside of their natural habitats, that ship sailed when they were brought to non native locations. I'm being hyperbolic, but I assume you don't want them to be released in the wild and die, right?
We have some feral colonies set up in places like Miami and San Francisco, but not all species thrive in warm locations.
That said, my palm sized green cheek conure is rarely in his extremely large cage (it's 4 by 4 feet). Door is always open unless he's sleeping or we're out of the house. Usually he's with me on my shoulder when I'm working during the day and gives his "2 cents" when I'm in meetings.
Most parrots kept as pets prefer it locked for security reasons. He'll get anxious if it's not when he's trying to sleep.
I've seen a lot of terrible bird owners, but I also know plenty that enrich their bird's lives. My little conure has a surprisingly extensive vocabulary for a species not known for speaking.
He says "poo" when when he has to poop, "what's up?" when he greets anyone, "whatcha doing", "<his name>", "yeah!" (mimicking Little Jon), "stop" (when he doesn't like what we're doing), "good boy", "Love you" and a few others I can't recall off the top of my head.
Surprisingly, we didn't really teach him most words and it was through context like yours. Teaching him mostly seems to backfire (i.e. "You want me to say that? Well I'm going to refuse to do it!"). The only one we might have taught him was "peek-a-boo", but even that has context, since he'll say it when we cover his head or we try to hide from him. Sometimes he'll hide behind my laptop, poke his head out and say it when he's trying to get my attention.
I guess I did teach him to say "yeah!". It became his alternative to express any excitable emotion instead of screaming. Usually comes with a little head bob at the same time for additional cuteness. He heard the song "Mi Gente" in a commercial once and when they say "yeah yeah yeah", out of nowhere he I hear him respond back with a "yeah!".
The first thing he learned was his name, "Willy", and for the longest time I thought he would just be a Pokemon...forever saying his name with different intonations depending on what he was trying to imply. I think he picked that up within his first year or so. Then he learned a few more. After 6 years he might be up to 12-16 now. Could be more, but he says a lot of gibberish that hasn't formed into words quite yet.
Perhaps my favorite is when he says he's a "good boy" and he just did something bad. Little jerk knows exactly what he's saying, but we love him anyways.
I can't really get him to do tricks yet, other than spinning in a circle. He's highly treat motivated, so anything that results in getting food will usually work if you keep at it. I'm trying to get him to try on a flight harness so we can take him out and about with us more often. He likes people, but he could be more socialized.
Guessing you have a green cheek as well? We have a cinnamon variation. I think they're a bit odd, but that could be GCCs in general as we've only had 1 and a budgie.
IIRC he did something like that, ask them to call back in "10 minutes after my meeting, and call my personal number, not my corporate phone, as it is tracked". On other occasions he filled in this number to some online forms that he "was asked to fill before continuing".
We already have 23/6 trading with index futures. The S&P500 (ES), NASDAQ 100 (NQ), DOW (YM) will sometimes gap up or down on open just to match overnight trading.
American robins come to my bird feeder quite often, but it's really for the peanuts (protein) and berries. The seeds themselves are deshelled, so they do occasionally take a sunflower chip. Shelless seeds have the side effect of attracting birds that don't normally visit feeders.
It's kind of cute: I'll see my resident robin observing the other local birds at the feeder and decide that he/she needs to get in on that too. They're smarter than they appear.
You're are correct though in that I've never need them take a seed that has a shell. I'm not sure their beaks are made to crack them open.
Birds like cardinals, chickadees, titmice and nuthatches do find insects for their young (protein), but primarily eat seeds the rest of the year. I'll still see them come to the feeder when they have babies, but it's for the high protein seeds like sunflower and also peanut pieces.
Funny enough, some birds, such as American goldfinches, don't feed their offspring insects at all to discourage brood parasites like cowbirds. Cowbird nestlings need insect protein to survive and if a cowbird lays eggs in a goldfinch nest, that bird is doomed.
If you really want to watch them up close, look for a feeder with a camera. If you're lucky you'll get some great video of them deciding what to eat and what to feed their young.
I love electronic renditions of classical music. Trance does this often (Tiesto, Armin van Buuren, William Orbit, Ferry Corsten and others) and it's some of the best work they put out. To me, it's like a natural progression from classical minimalism, such as Phillip Glass or Max Richter.
I've played the violin since I was a kid (only for fun now). I can find something I love about almost any musical genre and I'm sure I'm not the only one.
Coincidentally, FDR's predecesor was an engineer and we know how that presidency went (not that it was entirely his fault, but he didn't make things better either)
I used to love Opera, until they dropped the Presto Engine for Chromium's and sold off the company. These days, Vivaldi is more like Opera than current Opera since the founder is the former co-founder of Opera.
That said, the going theory about why some birds choose to nest in cavities is lower mortality rate in their young. I take that more as no one really knows why one species does while another of similar size does not.
Another random observation is most large birds walk and smaller birds hop. That's not always true either, since blue jays hop and crows will walk and sometimes hop.
[1] https://brighamstephen.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2018...
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