A FAMILY is being driven to distraction after their pet parrot started mimicking the ear-piercing noises of heavy machinery operating next door.
Michelle and Iain Cassie, of Newmachar, Aberdeenshire, said they have been tormented by loud construction work taking place just yards away from their house, which has been made twice as bad since their African Grey parrot Simba started imitating it.
The cheeky five-year-old bird is driving the couple up the wall with her copycat impressions of trucks reversing and drilling sounds.
Mrs Cassie, 46, said: "The parrot is actually making noises like the guys outside and is just copying anything.
"She makes grinding noises, truck noises and the beeping noise the cherrypicker makes when it's reversing.
"Putting up with the day-to-day sounds is hard enough without Simba copying them. We're just hoping when the works finish in January she will begin to stop the noises."
The builders have been constructing a community centre for Newmachar after seven years of locals raising more than £1.1 million for the project.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article