In August 2020, Lincolnshire Wildlife Park in eastern England received five African grey parrots as donations. Billy, Eric, Tyson, Jade, and Elsie were put into quarantine together as standard procedure while they settled in.

 

It didn't take long for staff to realize these five had something in common.

The parrots all swore. Loudly, enthusiastically, and in different British accents. One would let rip with an expletive, another would laugh, which triggered the first to swear again, which triggered more laughing, which triggered more swearing. The zoo's CEO, Steve Nichols, described it as "like an old working men's club where they're all just swearing and laughing at each other."

At one point Nichols heard what he thought were employees swearing loudly in the next room and went to tell them off. There were no employees. Just the birds.
When the parrots were finally put on public display, things escalated immediately. Within 20 minutes, one had sworn at a visitor. For the next group that walked past, the birds delivered what Nichols described as "all sorts of obscenities." A group of women walking by assumed the lewd comments being shouted at them were coming from a hidden member of staff.

The zoo had no actual complaints. Most visitors were delighted. "When a parrot tells you to f*** off," Nichols told the BBC, "it amuses people very highly. It's brought a big smile to a really hard year."

But with 200 other parrots nearby and impressionable ears everywhere, keepers decided to split the five up across different parts of the park before the habit spread.
It was too late for three of them. Three more parrots at the park later developed the same tendency. As of 2026, all five original birds now live in the main flock. The swearing, Nichols says, gets drowned out by the general noise most of the time.

Most of the time. Staff entering the aviaries still occasionally get greeted with a very direct "f*** off," which Nichols admits, even after years of working with parrots, remains highly amusing.