Blue Crowns new and old

Greetings everyone.

I am a long time Blue Crown companion having had my girl (though most likely boy) for about 13 years and I knew her when my brother's family cared for her before me. My guesstimate is that she is at least 25 years old now and could be older. She was wearing a band when I got her and I traced the number on it to an import station in Florida. She is very attached to me and never wanted to interact with other birds in my flock. Last year, I lost my other two birds due to tumors and a respiratory problem that no vet could figure out and Tootsie has been an only bird since then. I was actively looking to adopt another so she would not be alone when I'm not home. To complicate things I became unemployed and ended up moving twice before life stabilized again. A month ago I decided that it was time to bring another into the flock and I started searching for an adoption again. Enter Rosa.

Rosa is another Blue Crown without much of a known history that I adopted from a local rescue organization. I'm thinking that she is between 5 and 10 years old but that is more of a guess than anything based upon hard information. She is not afraid of me though is hand shy. But in the week since I brought her into my life she has already made strides towards accepting contact. She will accept scritches on the head and has discovered that they are quite enjoyable. Until she realizes that I'm touching her and she should be afraid of hands again. Her "You are touching me!" reaction is quite amusing. With time and attention I think she is going to work out just fine and be a happy bird with me.

I'm living in a small place but will be moving into something better at the end of the year so Rosa is not able to be in another room for a quarantine period like I normally would do. She is across the room from Tootsie about 10 feet apart for now. And she is VERY interested in Tootsie judging by the number of times I've had to retrieve her off the floor after she tries to bridge the distance between them. For her part, Tootsie is generally UNinterested and would rather climb down from her cage and cuddle with me. Eventually I would like for these two to be buddies if they are agreeable about it but I'm cautious about the introduction because Tootsie never seemed to want contact with other birds. The fact that they are both Blue Crowns didn't really enter into my decision to bring in Rosa but I am now hopeful that Tootsie will be more accepting of another of her own kind.

Tootsie and I always "bow" to each other when I come home as our greeting and it is a good way for her to dissipate some of her noise and excitement. I noticed that occasionally her and Rosa will start bowing at each other across the room and I'm guardedly taking that as a positive sign. I thought that I was fairly well versed in the body language of these birds but now that I have two of them for the first time I'm seeing some body language that I don't yet know how to interpret. The health and well being of both of these birds is uppermost in my mind but especially Tootsie since she is getting over the hill and is becoming slower and more grumpy.

So I'm curious as to what other Blue Crown companions have seen from their birds during an introduction and what I should look for as a sign of impending trouble.

Thank you very much and have a great weekend.

Congrats on your new addition

I can't say anything about bcc body language but I would love to see pics. The bowing thing sounds 2 cute

my willow bows to angel and says hello! must be a bcc thing. willlow will bow at anything new, when she's annoyed she lowers her head and opens her beak, but she's pretty well behaved and doesn't start anything. if angel (macaw) gets too close willow tells her "dont bite, no no no"

That "don't bite no no no" cracks me up! Lol

The lowering of head with open beak does seem to be a common bcc aggression response. Tootsie does that if she does not like something. They seem to have another trait, a preening/wing ruffling thing. Tootsie didn't do that very often before Rosa arrived. Now that she is here I'm getting all kinds of preening and ruffling. When one of them does it the other will do it also a moment later. It is pretty cute. I will see if I can get a picture of them together. Though I don't know if I can catch the bowing. I've been trying to film it since I first saw them doing it but no luck so far.

My BCC doesn't bow, but I thinks that yours does that as a way of saying "hi" to you. He's probably doing it to the new bird because that's how he's learned to say "hi" and he's greeting the new bird.
My birds are a little younger, but my BBC absolutely loves my irn and my eclectus. They all preen each other and share food from each other's beaks. They had to get used to being around each other and I didn't push them. I just waiting until they got curious and I watched carefully.
Most of the time now, when it's time for "night night", they all run to one cage and line up on one perch, so most of the time, they sleep that way.
I think they really enjoy having the company, so hopefully your babies will be the same way. I would just watch for the puffed up heads and open beaks and that squawk that says "Get away from MEEEEE"