Here's Tikka, my interpreter-bird.  She sits on my shoulder, and tells me what she hears.  Her hearing is exquisite.  Her vocabulary consists of about 7 words and 15 other sounds, including the hawk-alert sound and the "pay attention to me" incessant, increasingly-urgent click.  But she makes the most of what she has to work with, and if all else fails, she bites my earlobe.  At which point I turn to look at her, and she says, "What?"