I had the R2-Droid2 from Motorola for the longest time, longer even than it could make outgoing calls or provide a working keyboard. Mostly because I am an Artoo collector and this was pretty much the most functional (until it stopped functioning) part of my massive R2-D2 collection, trumping my R2-D2 cassette player from the third grade. Despite not being interested in sci-fi in the slightest, my mother always accommodated my interests, and when I got that phone it would (of course) make a variety of Artoo sounds any time I had an incoming text or email or call (rare.)
“There’s that bird again,” she’d say. “Is there a bird in the house? Why do I keep hearing a bird?”
So now that my Droid2 phone is gone, it’s kind of refreshing that this actual bird – an Australian parakeet – has the same love of R2-D2 and has learned to imitate his squeaks and beeps. His name is Bluey and he was “hand raised” by owner Carli Jeffrey’s seven year old daughter.
We played R2D2 sounds off Youtube to him four or five times and a few days later our daughter came running in saying he was doing R2D2. We were blown away that he picked it up so quickly! The other budgies in his cage started copying him but could only manage a few seconds at a time.
Bluey can even imitate the Artoo scream. In the video above, he does a constant stream of robot bloops for almost two minutes. Take that, other budgies.
Via Sploid