Kind-of like The Jungle Book, but sad: a 7-year-old boy in Russia who was recently taken into the custody of social workers can only communicate in chirps, because his mother raised him among her pet birds and never spoke to him.
Reports in Russian media claim the child, suffering from "Mowgli syndrome", was found in a tiny two-room apartment that appeared to double as an aviary, filled with cages containing dozens of birds, bird feed and bird droppings.
Social worker Galina Volskaya, who helped rescue the "bird-boy" from his home in Kirovsky, Volgograd, told Russian newspaper Pravda that he was treated like another pet by his 31-year-old mother.
Because she never spoke to him, Ms Volskaya explained, the boy's only communication was with the birds he was surrounded by.
"When you start talking to him," she said, "he chirps."
You know how sometimes when someone tells you something really terrible and all you can do is laugh because it's sad and tragic and uncomfortable and you don't know how to react? You know you shouldn't laugh at the thought of someone's father being hit by a bus and knocked into the river, but it's the only reaction you can muster? We're kind-of feeling that right now. And we hope this poor kid won't end up on David Letterman having his, uh, talents exploited.
[Daily Mail: First pictures of the 'bird boy' who was raised as a pet and can only communicate by chirping]