conure affection?

[KnightlyMoon]

My bird Mickey likes to lick my fingers and then pluck at the hairs on them- I wasn't sure if he was preening me in some way, but he does this at night.

He's also taken to gently rubbing his beak against my face and licking my eyelashes and trying to pick at my teeth (but I don't let him)

I've had him for a few years ever since my mom got him to replace her dog, and he was the first bird I bonded with. Is this his way of showing affection to my husband and me? (he does this to hubby too, but bites a little more often)

He also makes these little high-pitched squeaks when he sees me and gets attention from me- Mango is kind of copying it too. Is this all normal affection behavior?

(for context, Mango is the one with the yellow band, mickey is the blurry one, and their best friend Maria is the one posing in the back. I thought you all would like to see them)

 

[KnightlyMoon]

i forgot to add this in, but he also nibbles at my hair if he's near it.

(hes also sitting on my keyboard and is licking my hands a they move by him)

 

[Skarila]

Congratulations, you are part of the flock!

This behaviour is called allopreening- when the birds preen their flock buddies. My Pascal who absolutely doesn't want to be handled or be next to me will happily preen my face in the evening when I come to him. He doesn't let me give him a scratch thought
This is perfectly fine as long you are not wearing make up or any other products that might be harmful for the bird!

Also your feathered babies are gorgeous!

 

[IndySE]

Super cute! Sounds like love to me.

I started shaving my arm-hair because of my bird.. she discovered the fun new hobby of ripping it out to show how much she loved me. Conure love hurts sometimes D:

 

[clark_conure]

I wish I only had to only deal with this level of affection. My conure thinks I'm her husband. And dotes on me and expects the same. In my experience conures are EXTEMELY affectionate and into social interactions 24/7/ Part of their popularity.

 

[noodles123]

I'd be cautious with this...the amount of licking and the amount of time spent sounds hormonal-- hard to say without seeing it, but there is a difference between allopreening (head and neck only among non- mating birds) and mate-type grooming/sexual behavior that would only occur among breeding pairs in the wild. This sounds like the latter to me.
I would just watch this video and be wary of the fact that some of this can be sexual-- especially when it is happening for extended periods and is extremely tongue-heavy...lol. The maker of this video is the creator of Bird Tricks--- which is pretty well-known:
[ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=by54qevmF-4"]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=by54qevmF-4[/ame]

Here is their actual website, but you can find a ton of their videos for free on their youtube channel- https://birdtricksstore.com/pages/about-us