Mark and Lisa Brooks decided to take an enjoyable outing to Knaresborough Castle in North Yorkshire. As they explored the grounds, viewing the attractive building, they heard an unusual noise. Someone, or something, was asking passersby, “Y’alright love?” in a perfect Yorkshire accent.

They tracked down the little chatterbox and Lisa, 43, a chef from Leeds, enjoyed filming the bird on her Smartphone. The brief video clip has since gone viral, with many on social media amazed by the pied crow’s abilities.

The ability of birds to mimic speech

Birds are known to be clever mimics, but people think more of parrots than crows when speaking of their amazing skills.

As reported by UPI, in the video clip included below, the crow can be seen to be playing with a twig, before it hopped up onto a wall to have a little chat with a surprised and delighted Mark and Lisa.

iNews quotes Lisa as telling SWNS that she enjoys taking videos of wildlife and had been filming other birds and squirrels during their visit to the castle. She said when she faintly heard the words “Y’alright love?” she wandered over to see the clever crow. Lisa did say that initially, she thought her husband, Mark was playing around, but within a few minutes, she realized it was the crow.

Saying the bird had a “proper Yorkshire accent,” Lisa said she found the experience “absolutely hilarious.” She added that the pied crow obviously lives locally due to its perfect accent and that the crow also switched between saying “love” and “darling” along with its key phrase and the words “I’m alright.” Lisa said she didn’t think anyone there had seen a talking crow before, especially one with such a strong Yorkshire accent, and that most of them were shocked.

The short viral video clip has been seen almost one million times since it was posted by Lisa to Facebook and has received more than 14,000 shares and over 1,500 likes.

Parrots and their verbal skills

I personally live above an extremely talented parrot who has an enormous range of sounds and also perfectly mimics human speech.

If a dog barks, the parrot immediately makes a loud performance of a cat miaowing. If someone whistles close by, the bird immediately lets off a cavalcade of different whistles, including the famous “cat call.” Many a pleasant moment has been spent on my balcony having whistling contests with the parrot, although the bird is much better at it than I. Maybe I should try to make friends with a pied crow?