He knew his colours and shapes. He could identify over 50 objects, count up to 6, had a concept of zero, and had a vocabulary of over 100 English words. Accomplishments enough to get him a seat in the kindergarten class!

But Alex had been in school for three decades, tutored by a special tutor and her team. And what a student he was! His amazing learning capabilities not only established him as the world's most famous talking bird, it also made his teacher, Dr. Irene Pepperberg, associate professor of psychology at Brandeis University, Massachusetts, acknowledged authority on avian learning.

In the 1970s, Dr.Pepperberg noticed that a lot of research into animal communication and intelligence was taking place with Gorillas and Chimps as subjects. As someone who had grown up with parakeets, the young researcher was disappointed that no one was studying birds. Her hunch was that if trained, some birds might even talk.

So in 1977, she bought an African grey parrot from a pet store. She named him Alex, an acronym for Avian Learning Experiment. She had picked a grey parrot because they're known for their clear vocalizations. While the ordinary parrot's 'talk' is little unclear, the African greys sound more like people.

In a matter of years, the teacher and pupil together shattered the concept that parrots simply mimicked what they heard and that birds had very little intelligence.

Dr. Pepperberg used an innovative approach to teach Alex.  In the experiments, the teacher would employ one trainer to compete with Alex for a small reward, like a grape. Alex learned to ask for the grape by observing what the trainer was doing to get it.

Alex showed surprising capacity for learning. For example, when shown a blue paper triangle, he could tell an experimenter what colour the paper was, what shape it was, and - after touching it - what it was made of.

He demonstrated some of his skills on nature shows, including programs on the BBC. He could also use some one-liners like "calm down," and "good morning." He instructed the two other parrots at the lab to "talk better" if they mumbled!

Alex could express boredom, and after 10 or 15 trials of an experiment he would ask for grapes or simply give wrong answers! The parrot had the emotional equivalent of a 2 year-old child and intellectual equivalent of a 5 year-old.

An important off shoot of the experiment has been that the methods used to teach Alex numbers, are now being successfully modified to teach children with learning disabilities.

On Thursday September 6th Dr.Pepperberg put the bird in his cage as usual for the night. Alex looked at her and said: "You be good, see you tomorrow. I love you." The next morning, he was found dead in his cage.

Though African greys are known to have a life span of fifty years, Alex was gone at 31 The Alex Foundation is a non-profit foundation and is accepting memorial contributions for Alex. Funds will be used to continue research.