To counter some of the negative points here: My wife and I have an Timneh African Gray parrot and she is basically our child and who we miss most on vacation.

To counter some of the negative points here: My wife and I have an Timneh African Gray parrot and she is basically our child and who we miss most on vacation. Unlike the typical Congo African grays on the market, Timnehs are smaller, and tend to enjoy spending time with just about anyone but trust/recognize their regular keepers the most. They tend to make better family pets. (Congos can also be worked with to trust more than one person but it is typically much harder) She is not clipped and has free reign of the apartment when we are home with perches (and poop trays) everywhere she knows to fly to (usually). We also do flight training and often take her with us on walks. She is a very capable flier as she demonstrated in her 3 day adventure outdoors looking for my wife (who was out of town). She is slightly evil and plots ways to get attention. She gets very jealous of anything we give too much attention to other than her and has thus destroyed 2 laptops. We named her GlaDOS. Grays are known to do contextual communication and not just random mimmicry. Ours is no exception. When we come home she yells "Hello?!?!" until we take her out. When she wants to cuddle (which is often) she makes a stomach grumbling noise and demands to be let under the covers where she learned said noise. We have had guests feed her treats since she was a baby so she readily flies to the shoulder of most people. Sometimes she will randomly look at you and say "What do you do?!". They are not for everyone but if you have want a small highly intelligent animal you can form a strong bond with and are prepared to look after for 40+ years then parrots make amazing family members.