Listened
Join Ellen & Dalton Mason, creator and bird parent behind Apollo and Frens, for a look into life alongside the world-famous African grey parrot. You may have seen their videos on social media showing off Apollo’s incredibly impressive vocabulary, answering questions and even speaking in full sentences, which have earned the bird a spot in the Guinness Book of World Records in… Join Ellen & Dalton Mason, creator and bird parent behind Apollo and Frens, for a look into life alongside the world-famous African grey parrot. You may have seen their videos on social media showing off Apollo’s incredibly impressive vocabulary, answering questions and even speaking in full sentences, which have earned the bird a spot in the Guinness Book of World Records in 2025 - on top of all the pistachios, of course. We discuss animal cognition and what makes parrots such great models for animal intelligence, the brain soup machine, bird-proofing a home, parrots video calling each other, and so much more.
6-1011plusQUICK LINKS
This is an episodic podcast, so you can listen to it in any order, but episode one is a great place to start.
Listen to episode one hereJoin Ellen & Dalton Mason, creator and bird parent behind Apollo and Frens, for a look into life alongside the world-famous African grey parrot. You may have seen their videos on social media showing off Apollo’s incredibly impressive vocabulary, answering questions and even speaking in full sentences, which have earned the bird a spot in the Guinness Book of World Records in 2025 - on top of all the pistachios, of course. We discuss animal cognition and what makes parrots such great models for animal intelligence, the brain soup machine, bird-proofing a home, parrots video calling each other, and so much more.
Works Cited:
"Birds have primate-like numbers of neurons in the forebrain" - Seweryn Olkowicz et al., PNAS, June 2016
"Birds of a Feather Video-Flock Together: Design and Evaluation of an Agency-Based Parrot-to-Parrot Video-Calling System for Interspecies Ethical Enrichment" - Rebecca Kleinberger et al., Proceedings of the 2023 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, April 2023
African Grey Parrot flight calls: Peter Boesman, XC719450. Accessible at www.xeno-canto.org/719450
Links:
Learn more about Apollo and Frens on their website: https://apolloandfrens.com/
Follow Apollo and Frens on YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok!
For more information about us & our podcast, head over to our website!
Follow Just the Zoo of Us on BlueSky, Facebook, Instagram & Discord!
Follow Ellen on Instagram or BlueSky!
Help support this show and unlock bonus content! Become a member at https://maximumfun.org/joinjustthezoo
The content, artwork and advertising within this podcast is not owned or affiliated with Sound Carrot and remain the property of their respective owners.
Sound Carrot is your source for Family Podcast Discovery. Verified awesome, 0% boring.
Distraction free website, no flashing banners or adverts to steal your attention.
(Some shows do contain their own ads however).
At first I made this site for my kids, but like any dad I got a little over excited. I hope you find it as useful as they do.
Whether you want to listen to them together in the car, or alone in your room - the content is all safe for younger ears.