Hello fellow bird-lovers!
I have my sweet lovebird with me. Her wings haven't been clipped. She's fairly young, she was born this year. She has her cage in my bedroom as I spend most of my day there (working from home), and it's where I can interact with her in the most safe manner. I'm having a hard time interpreting her behavior outside of the cage, and since she's been with me for about a week, I'd love to hear some input!
I usually let her out 2-3 times a day for maybe one hour each, always in my bedroom. For context, there's a big glass window on one wall (always closed), next to her cage (her cage is half-exposed to sunlight, half-covered by the wall). The rest of the room is what I'd call a normal bedroom.
She's responding well to target training inside the cage, and a little bit less when outside. She hops onto my hand when she knows it's meant to bring her out of the cage, but when she's out her behavior is a bit more erratic.
As soon as she comes out, one of two things happens:
If for some reason she decides to fly down and sit on my head (which seems like her favorite parking spot on my body) she instantly goes back to chill mode, with some chirping here and there. The thing is, if I try to approach her when she's in one of the high places without luring her with food, she simply flies away to another place.
At first I felt that she just got noisy when out, then I figured maybe she was insecure with her flying (as she's still young), now I'm puzzled if she's scared about anything in the room because she rarely gets into "exploratory mode" unless she, for example, hops down from my head to my laptop or desk, where she starts testing things with her beak.
I may also add that she doesn't ever really want to go back to her cage, she doesn't "complain", but if I guide her towards the cage door without her being distracted by food she'll do her best to fly off again. And she's always eager to leave.
Does any of this make sense? Help an inexperienced owner figure this out!
PS: This may be important, I live with my parents, and I have a really loud canary in the kitchen. Sings a lot, chirps loud. My lovebird sometimes chirps in response, as if they're calling for each other, but that's about it. I haven't been able to understand if her outside loudness correlates to times where the canary is singing or not because that possibility only recently came to mind.
Thank you all so much for taking the time to read through all of this! Wish you and your birds the best of scritches!
I have my sweet lovebird with me. Her wings haven't been clipped. She's fairly young, she was born this year. She has her cage in my bedroom as I spend most of my day there (working from home), and it's where I can interact with her in the most safe manner. I'm having a hard time interpreting her behavior outside of the cage, and since she's been with me for about a week, I'd love to hear some input!
I usually let her out 2-3 times a day for maybe one hour each, always in my bedroom. For context, there's a big glass window on one wall (always closed), next to her cage (her cage is half-exposed to sunlight, half-covered by the wall). The rest of the room is what I'd call a normal bedroom.
She's responding well to target training inside the cage, and a little bit less when outside. She hops onto my hand when she knows it's meant to bring her out of the cage, but when she's out her behavior is a bit more erratic.
As soon as she comes out, one of two things happens:
- I guide her from my hand to my shoulder, and she sits there and chills while grinding her beak until she decides to leave, either to explore my desk in a relaxed way, or going into the behavior described below.
- I let her fly off from my hand instead of guiding her to my shoulder. She then gets really noisy, not only in the chirpy way, but also more in a screamy sense. Always goes for the high places, stays in one place for 30-40 seconds, then flies to another one (always from one wardrobe to another, and to a shelf, and so on). She also sometimes flies in circles as if not knowing where to land.
If for some reason she decides to fly down and sit on my head (which seems like her favorite parking spot on my body) she instantly goes back to chill mode, with some chirping here and there. The thing is, if I try to approach her when she's in one of the high places without luring her with food, she simply flies away to another place.
At first I felt that she just got noisy when out, then I figured maybe she was insecure with her flying (as she's still young), now I'm puzzled if she's scared about anything in the room because she rarely gets into "exploratory mode" unless she, for example, hops down from my head to my laptop or desk, where she starts testing things with her beak.
I may also add that she doesn't ever really want to go back to her cage, she doesn't "complain", but if I guide her towards the cage door without her being distracted by food she'll do her best to fly off again. And she's always eager to leave.
Does any of this make sense? Help an inexperienced owner figure this out!
PS: This may be important, I live with my parents, and I have a really loud canary in the kitchen. Sings a lot, chirps loud. My lovebird sometimes chirps in response, as if they're calling for each other, but that's about it. I haven't been able to understand if her outside loudness correlates to times where the canary is singing or not because that possibility only recently came to mind.
Thank you all so much for taking the time to read through all of this! Wish you and your birds the best of scritches!
