What does the eagle pose mean?

[Kentuckienne]

Last few days Gus has done this eagle imitation. Stands up, raises both wings (clipped) out to full height and spread and holds them there. All he needs is a claw full of arrows and leaves to be a quarter. I never saw a parrot do this before. When he does it he's excited and even bit the preferred human quite sincerely yesterday. What does that pose mean in nature?

 

[SailBoat]

Last few days Gus has done this eagle imitation. Stands up, raises both wings (clipped) out to full height and spread and holds them there. All he needs is a claw full of arrows and leaves to be a quarter. I never saw a parrot do this before. When he does it he's excited and even bit the preferred human quite sincerely yesterday. What does that pose mean in nature?

Well, as you have likely seen, for Eagles its a pose they take on after 'fishing' or after a rain shower as means of drying off. For a MAC its a pose they take on after a rain shower as a means of drying off. Both will lift their wings just off their bodies to help with cooling. My Amazon will do the same after a shower, but that is the only time I have seen him do that other than a quick stretch open and close and I would assume the same for MAC's

FYI: Missed one! Our Amazon will take on the pose when he is getting a 'misting' to allow mist access to his inter feathers.

 

[plumsmum2005]

Plum will spread his wings to full width to make himself seem as big as possible to a perceived threat, you know an itty bitty spider on the ceiling, that kind of thing. There is plenty of screeching to accompany the moves just in case we missed it ;-)

 

[chris-md]

I'm in line with Parker, my Ekkie. He will do this around running water when he really wants a shower. Also afterwards to dry off.

 

[SilleIN]

It sounds like Gus is getting so comfortable, that he is being cage territorial. It sounds exactly like the pose Sugar does when he's hormonal and trying to tell me, he's really dangerous and WILL protect his nest (cage).

The upside to this is you now have a perfect opportunity to teach him showing/flapping his wings on command.

If it gets really bad and he won't let you take him off the cage, I in worst case will use a broom stick to ask him to step up on that, as when he's really hormonal, he will bite. Once he's off the cage he's back to his own loving self.

If Gus is completely normal, once he's off the cage, the best advise I can give you is to change his cage for a few nights. That helps. If you don't have the option to change his cage, then move his cage to another room, that should help some

 

[Kentuckienne]

I wondered about the shower thing...it is just the pose ...but he has truly resisted the shower. He did drink out of the faucet, once...so this morning he was on my shoulder in the kitchen and edging toward the running water, so we let him get to it. He bit at it, put his beak under ...we don't want him to drink it as it's been through a softener and is salty. But he was so interested...we tried putting some water in a flat thing and wound up being able to fling a good amount on him so he got about half soaked (in contrast to the kitchen and parronts who got fully soaked) and seemed to like it. He did keep going after the running water. So maybe that was it, he wanted a bath! Thanks for the tip!

revision: Gus was excited because his human was in another room, and demanded I take him there, whereupon he did the eagle thing a little bit, reached over as if to step up, and bit his human right on the wrist while stepping over. Similar to what he did to me. So maybe he uses the wings to both indicate "I sure am dirty" and "I sure am feisty" with maybe more emphasis on the feisting.

 

[GaleriaGila]

I do believe there's the Rb eagle-thing in my signature... left side, right-most photo. He's clipped, so this would be when he was 3-4... circa 1988... circa SEXUAL MATURITY. He "eagles" when he is feeling particularly impressed with his rooster-ness.