My Conure keeps flying off after stepping up?!

My Black Capped conure use to step up and stay like a pro. But as of late he keeps flying off every time he steps up. I’m not sure if he is afraid of us because we did trim his nails last week, but it’s nothing he hasn’t done before and we didn’t hit the quick and hurt him or anything. Also, he will come over to us on his own for cuddles and to play, but if we go to him and he thinks he has to step up, he blots. We are so confused, and wonder if you guys have some advice on how to fix this behavior?

Some questions you guys might ask:
- He is hand raised and was trained step up by the breeder.
- His wings are trimmed for low flight, because we want him to fly, but not hit the ceiling fans.
- He his not afraid of going in his cage.
- He is about 2 years old, and is a male.
- He is up from 8:00am to 9:00PM.
- He is aloud to free roam the house with supervision. He has little stations/preaches in every room for him to fly to. That’s what he flys to when he steps up.

Cuddles=sex..pet on the head only or you will see many unpredictable behaviors.
I will write more later though.

Medical grade Krazy glue? He will STAY where you put him ! J/K

How about giving treats while he is on his perch?

My first thought would be: what reason does he have to step up?

With Cairo, I've two versions of step-up: one is a mandatory "step up", and the other is a "do you wanna?" I do use those cue phrases so he understands the difference. On top of that, "step up" gets him a treat majority of the time (sometimes I don't have a treat at hand, but I need to urgently shift him).

Now, my partner frequently asks for "step up" but doesn't offer an incentive, which means Cairo doesn't see a fair bargain. If Cairo wants to stay on his perch and chill away from the humans, he doesn't see why he should be moved against his desire unless you give him a good enough reason - treats, training (which he loves), etc. And you don't always have to give him a reason each and every time, but majority of the time so he understands if you're asking for "step up" it might be a reasonable request.

When I first started with Cairo, he would step up, receive a treat, and fly off. In that case, it was largely that we didn't have a relationship or understanding between each other yet. Even now that we have a relationship, yes, he does like to hang out with me more, but sometimes you don't always want to hang out with your friends when they call, right?

But I always make sure to watch his body language and give him a choice (if it's safe). And because he knows now that if I ask for step up and he angles to go to a new perch, I put him on the new perch rather than forcing time between us, he respects my requests/commands a lot more.

Fly him back to his cage a couple of times, just wondering if expending some energy will make it easier to get him stay put. Use a favoured treat to reward the good and ignore the bad behaviour.

You might also consider target training. You can Google it and there are videos etc.