
DATE: Wednesday, August 6, 1997             TAG: 9708060076

SECTION: DAILY BREAK             PAGE: E7   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY MARY REID BARROW, STAFF WRITER 

                                            LENGTH:   85 lines

FAIR'S PERFORMING BIRDS ARE SHOW STOPPERS

AS CAROLE WOMACK and her performing birds were on the road last week, Womack began singing an operatic aria. And then an unusual thing happened right there in the big house trailer tooling along Interstate 95 on the way to Fair at the Beach.

``All of a sudden, one of the macaws started singing opera too,'' Womack said. ``It had never happened before.''

A former opera singer, Womack had been trying for years to teach one of her Thespian birds to sing along with her. But no luck. All of a sudden, Ringo tuned in, belting out his own operatic aria.

Womack doesn't know when Ringo will decide to sing again, but she knows the colorful macaw won't forget how. After all, star Alfie, a handsome white cockatoo, and his four macaw pals go through such a polished routine with Womack three times a day at the fair at Camp Pendleton that you can't tell who's coaching whom.

``These birds know the script as well as we do,'' said Womack's husband, Don.

The birds don't miss a line. When Carole Womack said, ``Bark,'' Alfie barked like a dog during a recent performance. He also coughed like a human and clucked like a chicken when he heard the words ``cough'' and ``chicken.'' Then Womack began giving those commands several times in a row, rapid fire, and Alfie got them right every time.

``Are you going to say the words that everybody loves to hear?'' Womack asked Alfie.

``I love you,'' Alfie responded in his gravelly, whiskey voice.

There's a little science to this avian hat trick. The birds do not actually understand spoken English. Instead, they respond to certain voice and hand cues. In this case, the word ``say'' is the trigger that gets the bird to say ``I love you.'' When Womack spoke, she gave her words no special cadence or emphasis to distinguish ``say'' from any other words in the sentence.

It's so smooth you'd never know.

The other birds are seasoned performers like Alfie. They all do feats such as dancing, roller skating, riding a bike on a ``tight rope,'' answering the phone and doing gymnastics on a swing. Ranging in age from 24 to 38 years old, all five birds have been with the Greenville, S.C., couple since the act began 21 years ago.

In her pre-bird life, Carole Womack trained chimpanzees to pay for her singing lessons. She started working with birds after the TV show ``Baretta'' popularized trained parrots.

``Birds not only do tricks but they can talk too,'' Womack said. ``That was a new challenge.''

She equates training birds with training chimpanzees and dogs. She's proud of the smoothness of the performance and of the use of two birds at one time in some acts, like the routine where two macaws pushed a ``hand cart'' up and down with their feet.

It helps that the birds are hams at heart. ``They know they're on stage,'' Womack said.''

Take Bianca, one of the macaws. She ruffled her feathers and fluttered her wings excitedly as Womack pulled out a miniature pair of roller skates for Bianca's act.

Then one of the other macaws got in on the fun. The bird imitated the sound of the crowd laughing at Bianca as she went through her routine of ignoring Womack's request to skate. The bird then huffily tossed the roller skates aside.

Ringo's acrobatic show stopper was the grand finale. ``It took six months to teach this behavior,'' Womack told the crowd. It takes all his stamina and strength - and the roar of the crowd.

Ringo perched on a tiny swing and, by undulating his chest in and out, pushed the swing higher and higher as the crowd clapped. Finally the swing was flying high enough to go all the way up and over and back down again in a 360-degree circle. The crowd cheered.

Then Ringo did his death-defying feat again and again. He had the crowd in the crook of his claw, and you could tell he knew it.

Alfie Cockatoo and His Comedy Macaws will perform three more times today at Fair at the Beach before they head on to their next gig in Chicago, perhaps with Ringo providing music for the road. ILLUSTRATION: Graphic

WANT TO GO?

What: Fair at the Beach

When: 4 to 11 p.m. today and Thursday; 4 p.m. to midnight Friday

and noon to midnight Saturday and Sunday

Where: Camp Pendleton (Birdneck Road entrance), Virginia Beach.

Admission: adults, $5; children, 4 to 12, and adults, 60 and

older, $4; children 3 and under, free. Ride tickets are sold

separately inside the gate. Information: Call (757) 427-3580, code

506.