Beo

The Hill Myna (Grac­ula reli­giosa), called Beo in Ger­man, is a bird known for its par­tic­u­lar gift with lan­guage. It is not, by the way, a par­rot, but a mem­ber of the starling fam­ily.

Any­one wish­ing to vis­it the Hill Myna in its nat­ur­al hab­it­at would have to travel far: to Sri Lanka, the south­w­est and east of India, the Him­alay­as, Borneo or Java.

In our lat­it­udes these vocal artists are usu­ally kept alone, but in free­dom, they much prefer liv­ing in pairs or even in small fam­ily com­munit­ies.

Unlike in our logo, the real Hill Myna is black, some­times with a green gloss. It has yel­low patches extend­ing from the sides to the back of its head.

And there is the strik­ing yel­low beak, which the Hill Myna uses to dig into fruits and insects.

Hill Mynas kept in cap­tiv­ity are par­tic­u­larly pop­u­lar for their perky and cheeky nature, and of course because of their tal­ent for mim­ick­ing voices and noises with stun­ning accur­acy.

Their own­ers are usu­ally rather ath­let­ic people, being chased point­lessly to the phone or the front door all the time by their prac­tic­al joker of a pet bird…