I had to have certain confidence and trust in my bird that if I had to pick her up or put her away that she would let me do that without a fight. Heck, there wouldn’t be a chance for any treats, targeting, coaxing, or second tries. But having trained 12 tricks, numerous taming behaviors, and gotten close with my bird, I felt comfortable and confident that I would not have a problem with her behavior.

As you may have seen in a previous post, I have taken my parrot out on car outings before. This helped her get used to new people, places, and car rides. The airplane ride was not that much different from a car drive and birds aren’t afraid of heights.

My friend, who suggested that I get a bird, told me that he never takes his bird places. In fact he said that since its first wing clipping, he never took it out of the house because it would be too stressful. It is no wonder that he was shocked when I met him at the airport having flown in with my parrot on my shoulder.

There is no doubt that vet visits and grooming visits can be stressful to a bird. But this does not mean that travel has to be. If the only reason you ever take your bird out is for unpleasant things, it is no wonder it doesn’t want to go in a carrier. I try to make my birds outings as pleasant to the bird as possible. I give her lots of attention (more than at home), lots of opportunities to earn treats easily, and new things to try. Furthermore, I try to balance every vet/trimming visit with at least (but usually more) double the number of fun outings. Thus my bird really doesn’t know in advance what kind of outing it will be but odds favor a pleasant one.

The reason why trick training was important and had such a tremendous impact on my bird is because it makes the bird used to doing what I ask it to do. Trick training builds trust and respect between bird owner and bird in both directions. The owner teaches the bird behaviors but the bird also reflects what it wants to and doesn’t want to do. Trick training helps develop a positive relationship and that relationship develops into a real loving bond.

None of my parrots are great talkers.  Aside from Theo, my goffins cockatoo, who has never uttered anything sounding remotely like human speech, they all have a small repertoire of words which they use when they choose to.

Libby, my quaker, is probably my best talker and has made big leaps in his vocabulary over the past year or two.  He likes to watch Pluto the quaker parrot videos over and over, and is eager to learn whatever Pluto says.  He is a long way from having the Quaker Song down, but he’s off to a great start.

Linus, my umbrella cockatoo, greets me everyday with a boisterous Hi! How doin’? when I return from work, and informs passersby that I’m a bird when he’s outside.  He associates words with objects and will call them by name IF he feels like it. I know he can talk because he does when it suits him, like the cute and VERY clear hello he purrs when I’ve caught him in the act.

I asked a friend of mine, a retired school teacher in Louisiana, if I could read the vocabulary journals she has kept on her scarlet macaw Fergie, and Blusher, her red fronted macaw.  When I opened the attachments, I was surprised to see hundreds of entries.  Some were cute and funny,  some were impeccably and appropriately timed, they were all amazing.  I just had to share a few of them:

Their correct usage of pronouns is astonishing. One example:

I was on the floor after cleaning cages.  Fergie was “owning” the floor.  I ended up on the floor with a toy.  Fergie finally came to me.  Blusher was on the swing and tried every way to get me.  She tried “Up,” “Mama,” “Step up.” and finally “I up.”

This was a conversation his owner had while trying to order something by credit card over the phone with Fergie nearby:

Once upon a time I had to have hand surgery.  The PT that followed required my doing exercises.  I got my hand level, started the exercises, and counted them off: “One, two, three, etc.”  My bird started learning the numbers.  I thought that was cool until I realized that he could not say the number “four” clearly.  I feared the worst, so I quit saying the numbers.  Not to be deterred, he somehow managed to learn a few numbers, his favorite being “five.”

Weeks after this I was making a phone call and I had to give my VISA number (or account number, or some such thing).  My bird was on my arm.  The conversation went something like this:

Me: Two one six.

Bird: Five.

Clerk: Two, one, six, five.

Me:  No.  There is no “five.”

Clerk:  OK.  Two, one, six.

Me: Three two nine.

Bird: Five

Clerk: Three two nine five.

Me:  No.  There is no “five.”

Clerk: OK.  Three, two, nine.

Me: Six, two, three.

Bird: Five.

Clerk: Six two three five.

Me:  Sir, there is no “five.”  Could you wait while I put my bird down?

Note:  She has recently noticed that the birds are not just using numbers arbitrarily.  Lately there has been a correlation between the number and how many items are present.

A conversation with Blusher:

Blusher:Mama?
Me:Yes, Blusher?
Blusher: Want up.
Me: Blusher, we’re going to take a nap now.
Blusher: Mama?
Me:Yes, Blusher?
Blusher:Want up? Do you want up?
Me:No, Blusher. I want to take a nap.
Blusher:Mama?
Me:Yes, Blusher?
Blusher: Want up.
Me: Blusher, we’re going to take a nap now.
Blusher shrieks and shrieks and shrieks.
Sound of Blusher’s guts coming up.
Blusher:Mama?
Me:Yes, Blusher?
Blusher:Get up.
Me:No, Blusher. I’m going to take a nap.
Repeat the above for 5 (at least) minutes. I finally give up and don’t answer her. She continues alone for a long time then gives us about 20 minutes of quiet. Then she starts again.
Blusher: Mama?
Blusher: Want up.
Blusher: Mama? I want up.

Fergie requesting to go to bed:

While I was at computer; she had said “light” and I told her I couldn’t go to bed now that I was working on the computer.  She said “light” a few more times then said “night night.”

The next night she said “Light” three times and each time I told her I was busy and couldn’t turn off the light.  Then she said “Night night” three times and each time I told her I was busy.  She then flew off my shoulder and stayed somewhere behind me.  She kept saying “Light.”

I knew she could not get in any trouble back there, so I ignored her until the lights went out.  She had flown to the top of the piano and had reached up and grabbed the light switch, saying “Light” until she finally got it to turn off.

As soon as the light went off, she let go of the switch and it popped back up and the lights came back on.  She had not pulled it completely down, but she knew exactly what she was doing.

And another from the journal:

Tonight I heard the sound of two birds “fighting,” but they were in their cages.  It had not really dawned on me what I was hearing until Blusher said, “Hey, you two.  Break it up.”

Sunshine is an african grey that came through a shelter in need of a new home.  While he was adjusting to his life at the shelter, this video was made.    (In another, he repeats a one time conversation his former owner had with, perhaps,  a carpet cleaning company, he spells out the owner’s last name and starts to spell Albuquerque – which I just had to look up!)

Well actually it is a parakeet. But it’s only one of over a hundred types of parakeets. This bird is a budgerigar.

A new pet peeve of mine is when people call these birds parakeets, keets, or American parakeets. When I head of this American Parakeet, I was perplexed because I had never heard of a parakeet native to North America. When I looked into it and saw a picture of a budgie labeled American Parakeet, I only got more frustrated.

That is because budgerigars are actually native to Australia and in the aboriginal tongue means “good to eat.” Just because tanks full of budgies in pet stores are labeled parakeets, the sales people tell you they are parakeets, pet supplies are labeled parakeets, does not mean that budgies should be referred to as parakeets and the other 100+ types be neglected.

The term parakeet refers to small long tailed parrots and you may already know a few kinds:

-Ringnecked Parakeet

-Alexandrine Parakeet

-Monk Parakeet (quaker parrot)

-Lorikeet

There is in fact an entire genus comprised of parakeets called Psittacula. But there are species of parakeets all across the parrot family.

Calling budgies parakeets has only led to an enormous level of confusion. In an email addressed to me a long time ago (when seeking to buy my first bird) a friend who owns a cockatiel wrote to me, “Parakeets are a little more fun and will like to come out and play around…some can be trained to talk and do tricks……..will recognize you.

Budgies are sort of like parakeets but better.” My friend had apparently heard of parakeets and heard the term budgie and since they sound completely different he mistook it for two different species of birds. He did not realize that one is a specific species and the other is a category to which that species belongs.

And believe me he was not talking about parakeets as a genera of birds because the rest of the email discussed specific types.

On this forum, people seem to be quite confused about the difference between budgies and parakeets as well. Someone posted, “A Parakeet isn’t known as a budgie in England, a Parakeet is like a small parrot, a Parakeet is all green with a red beak, native been India but found mostly in South East England.” This was probably talking about a Ringnecked parakeet but this person was confused as well.

I think that if everybody called the birds by their right names, there would not be all this unnecessary confusion. A Ringnecked Parakeet is a Ringnecked Parakeet and a Budgerigar is a Budgerigar.

Just because budgies are a type of parakeet is not a good reason to call them parakeets. Every time someone makes a remark about parakeets, that are actually making a blanket statement about over 100 species of parakeet.

If you want to talk about birds like the one pictured above (ranging in colors from green/yellow, blue/white, yellow, and white), then you should be saying budgerigar or budgie for short. If you want to talk about the entire subset of small, long tailed parrots, then by all means call them parakeets.

But just because most people are misinformed is no reason for educated parrot enthusiasts to continue to mislabel these birds. I try to take every opportunity to correctly call my bird a budgie (or budgerigar in full) and point out that it is not just a “parakeet” but one of many different parakeets.

The very best advice anyone is going to give you is to know your birds. Know what calms them, know what excites them, know what motivates them.  Know what tone of voice they respond best to, and know which actions (or inactions) indicate aggression.  Know their favorite foods.

Know when they’re tired or that they are over stimulated from too much play.  This knowledge is the very best tool in helping you to control their behaviors, assessing their health and preparing their environment.

Learning its body language is a big part of understanding the bird.  Having knowledge about your species will help you to understand what it means when they do that fluffing thing, or when they pound their beak on something.

Parrots have very expressive eyes.  Amazons have that ability to flash their eyes when they are excited or agitated, and it’s a sign you can’t miss.  But knowing whether it means playtime, or back-off, is up to your interpretation.  All of my parrots have dark eyes and without that obvious pinning, you have to really look closely to notice that their eyes are telling you something.

Normally their eyes are quite round.  When their shape changes to oval, something other than business as usual is going through their mind. I know that I have to make some change to the environment, perhaps something I am doing, or redirect their attentions.

The raised crest, the fluffed nape, the fanned tail are all neon signs that something is up, but these signs are useless to you if you don’t understand your parrot well enough to act appropriately.

I know, the minute I uncover my umbrella cockatoos cage in the morning, what kind of day Linus is going to present me with. He is usually in a great mood, with all kinds of enthusiasm for the new day.

But there are some days when he gets up and just has that look:  ” I don’t like my breakfast, I don’t like the weather, and that cat definitely has to go!” Getting up on the wrong side of the perch, as it were.

Cockatoos are famous for biting without warning.  I find that to be an unfair evaluation.  The warning signs are always there, just very subtle and very easy to miss.  Linus is a blur of activity.

He is always on the go and I have to be aware of his every move.  The one thing he does that raises my eyebrows, and the hair on the back of my neck, is nothing.  When he stops moving, he is plotting, and it is never, ever a good thing.

I make sure that I notice every nuance, every pause, and every glint in his conniving little eyes.

My cockatiels have been with me forever.  They are patient and sweet and good.  As I have added to my flock, the dynamics have changed and they have been very relaxed about the division of my attention.

However, when they have decided it is their turn with mom, there is nothing subtle about the way they express their needs.  They will climb my pant leg,  stand on top of my head or peck at my feet.  All birds should be this easy to understand and easy to accomodate.

Libby, my mischief making quaker, follows me everywhere I go.  She has to be part of everything that goes on around her, but since she has reached sexual maturity, her behavior is sometimes erratic.

When I come home from work, everyone comes out of their cages and gets a plate of warm veggies or some fruit.  Libby sits patiently on my shoulder while I prepare the food, just as happy and interested as can be.  However the minute I set the plate down, she will nip my fingers and flip the plate onto the floor, without fail.

While the cockatiels love this because they get to forage on the floor, and it is amusing to watch them chasing peas around, it gets a little old.  This is a new “I’m sexually mature now” behavior, one that didn’t exist before, and I don’t get the connection.  It is one of the many oddities Libby has developed and I suspect there are more to come.  I am having to do some relearning with her.

I now offer her dinner inside of her cage.

Theo has only been with me for a year and a half.  She is the sweetest, funniest bird ever, but also the hardest to get to know.  Unlike the others, she doesn’t wear her heart on her sleeve and isn’t usually demonstrative about what she wants.

Without any indicators, it is sometimes tough to figure out, and I run through a mental checklist of possible grievances.  She is a very happy, low key bird by nature, fortunately, so I don’t worry about her feeling neglected when my powers of telepathy fail her. I am hoping that living with other birds that typically ask for what they need will rub off on her.

There’s an old saying that goes: “Only the bird with the open mouth gets fed.”   I can only watch for signs of discontentment and take it from there.

Understanding with your parrots is an on going process.  Learning from your mistakes will be the key to your future successes:  “We should’ve stopped this activity five minutes ago before he became so over-excited” or “I know not to keep him up so late at night anymore”.  Keeping a journal of notable experiences will help you a lot.

I have a dated journal in which I record all of the birds weights.  In between these entries I make notes: “Linus had a meltdown today when I turned the blender on in the kitchen. I moved the blender to the area of the kitchen he could see into and he calmed down.  He just needed to see where the noise was coming from.”  This notation helped me  recently when there was construction going on around my apartment.

The commotion was upsetting to him and I took him outside to see what was happening.  He groaned with displeasure and verbally chastised the workers in cockatoo-ese (I’m sure all of the words were four letters) but went back about his business when we were inside again.  He was able to make sense of the chaos from observing it and his comfort was restored. This is one more thing I now know about Linus.

You may have seen my previous post about my budgie going through a toilet paper tube. Well we took this trick one step further.

Now the budgie runs through a slinky as well.

This trick add on only took five minutes to train as he had already learned to go through various sized tubes.

This one is more exciting though because you can see the bird running through the slinky and because it can be bent in different directions as opposed to the straight tube. One time we let him run into the slinky and quickly bent the exit end and hooked it up with the entrance end and he kept going around in a circle a couple times till we let him out.

So if you have taught your bird to go through a tube, go ahead and try to find a slinky to add another trick to your repertoire without the effort of teaching a whole new trick. The bird should pretty quickly figure out that the slinky is just another tube to go through if it is already proficient at the tube trick.

Start by letting it run through a contracted slinky as a plain tube and once it figures that out, you can start expanding it for longer runs. If the bird isn’t picking it up, go back to the tube trick post and just use the same techniques to target the bird through the slinky. Please be careful and use two hands or get assistance for holding the slinky open.

If you let go of one end, it may spring shut and injure your bird. Be safe and enjoy.

As you may know, Kili, my Senegal Parrot has a bit of a biting problem.

Since I live alone, the parrot has not been well socialized to other people. So what I have been doing lately is taking the bird with me every chance I have to meet new people and see new places.

So this was an occasion where I had the boring task of driving someone to and from the dentist. Right before leaving I was brainstorming what to bring to keep myself entertained during the wait and what better companion to bring than my companion parrot? So I quickly tossed my parrot in the carrier and headed out.

During some point of the drive, I took out the bird and let her drive the car a little. Or we played birdie phone (I don’t think it’s illegal to talk on a bird phone yet). The rest of the time she enjoyed hanging out on my shoulder.

She’s very well behaved and I could let her sit on my the whole drive if pooping wasn’t an issue. I get worried about keeping her out longer than 10 minutes because I know there is one coming and I don’t want my clothes ruined while I’m out.

Back to the biting I mentioned. My bird can get bossy at home and particularly around her cage. Out on a trip though, she is an angel. She will let anyone and everyone pet/handle her so it makes things so much easier.

At home, she will often bite or scare my girlfriend but on trips like these I try to take the opportunity to let her hold and pet the bird because it is much tamer in strange environments.

While I waited outside the dentist office, I played with my bird and had her do some tricks for treats. Fun for me and fun for the bird. Sure beats sitting in the cage anyhow.

So next time you are not looking forward to having to drive someone someplace, think about taking your parrot with you for company.