The astonishing clip shows a parrot chewing and tearing apart a traditional Spring Festival couplet and gently tucking the strips into its tail.

Smartphone footage recorded in a family’s home in the city of Xinxiang, located in China’s central province of Henan, depicted the lovebird standing on the wall and ripping the couplet with its beak on 27th February.

Then, in a delightful display of creativity, the playful bird can be seen carefully stuffing the perfect strips of paper into its tail feathers.

According to reports, lovebirds engage in this typical behaviour to tuck the paper away for safekeeping so that they can use it later as nesting material.

The video prompted an avalanche of comments after it was shared on China’s version of TikTok. Douyin, later that day, leaving users unable to hold back from commenting.

Douyin user ‘Chen family Jun girl’ said: “Maybe it just wants to be a phoenix.”

Then user ‘Kai’ commented: “This is preparation for courtship, it must be a male.”

And ‘Early summer’ added: “This is not about decoration. It’s the parrot’s natural instinct to prepare and build a nest by bringing more materials to reduce the number of trips back and forth. It’s very smart.”

The clip has reached more than 1.7 million likes and another 2.6 million shares on the platform as of 28th February.