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This is a beautiful bird that loves being stroked it talks, sings and any child would love it. The one I was sent has blue wings, a yellow front, green top of it's head with a black and white face. The fur/feathers are really tactile and all in all this parrot is a 45cm joy. It comes with a perch but it can be easily removed to be held and it even has a biscuit to chew on.

A light sensor is built in and one of the games it likes is peek a boo where you cover it's eyes, it also blinks, in fact it is extremely lifelike but as yet it has defecated. It already has a vocabulary and even a song. It can answer you back. Luckily there are no swear words included. There is a small remote control and this allows you to program responses. Should you wish these could be &*$@#~| but the child will pick up profanities quickly enough at school so let's keep it clean.

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There is a small instruction book and most things seem to work without problem. I found getting it to increase it's vocabulary the hardest and to do this you need to part the Velcro on the centre seam of it's back to switch it to the correct mode. This to me is perhaps the weak point as it could encourage a young child to try the same with a real parrot and this could be disastrous as real parrots do not have a Velcro seam in their backs. Perhaps the parrots biscuit is not a great idea as the child may try to feed it real food. The instruction book does warn you not feed it anything but it's biscuit but children are not always that hot on reading instruction booklets.

The most important thing is the interaction and visitors immediately do interact once they get over the fear that it could be real - it does look very lifelike - and at it's size it could do you substantial damage if it was real.

It speaks and you naturally answer. With a young child it could even encourage them to talk. Parents of course with the very young would have to record the child's name so for instance 'where's Duane' could be in it's vocabulary. 

It does state for age 5-105 but with decent supervision I am sure younger children would love it. Now the actual items that are pre programmed it has six responses when you tell it a joke. Two responses when you first turn it on. If you rub it's beak it responds and it also has two different responses to rubbing it's back and another to scratching it's head. There are a further five pre programmed responses that I will leave you to find. It also has voice recognition of sorts with around 30 different replies.

Of course by using the remote you add phrases and also you can get a predicted response from the six 'A'-'F' keys once you have programmed them.

This is a great toy and with the exception of how you change mode (opening the Velcro to get to switches) and the possibility of a child trying to feed it real food my only proviso is that a real parrot may not always be as friendly.

To see a video of Squawkers McCaw go to www.furrealfriends.com it should soon be shown on the UK site http://www.hasbrotoyshop.co.uk/d2c/b2c/start.do

Doing my Internet searches could only find it on ebay.co.uk the furrealfriends site has it for $69.99 and if you could find it in the UK for less than £40 then tell me where. As I have a nasty suspicion it will be a £ for $ rate and with the dollar only worth 50p that is a crime.

As I do not know a UK price unless you can buy it in the USA (remember import duty and tax) I have not given a smiley value, if it was/is available in the UK for under £40 then I would certainly have considered a 5x5 award.