Botsari
Active member
I've seen it in many, many birds - and have first hand experience with it with both my previous Greys when they were relatively young (less than 5-10 years old) - that a very trusting bird will allow you to gently put them on their back with their feet in the air, especially if you are paying attention to them. I'm very much of the school that you should avoid, not force your physical contact beyond head scratches, especially after they grow up, and the whole on-their-back thing seems to be a position no bird really feels fully comfortable or safe in, especially for an extended period - like beyond a couple dozen seconds. They can't use their wings and without their feet clamped onto something most of them seem to feel out of control and scared. Its cool and all when they trust you so much that they will allow it, but the point has always seemed to be "look at how much this bird trusts me that he will do this unnatural thing".
Which brings us to Goose, who is coming up on 6 months old. He has not had any prior experience of this type of thing before me, and I have never, ever tried to put him in this position. But in the last few weeks he has been literally rolling into this position in my arms and then going into "blissed out though %100 alert mode" for 20-30 minutes. The first time he surprised me and literally barrel-rolled off my shoulder down my arms onto the kitchen table. The next time I caught him and noticed that he was TRYING to do this. Now when he wants this I can feel him slowly start leaning until I bring my arms up to catch him, and then he rolls upside down. If I scratch his head or talk to him he pretty much will stay there absolutely still, just looking at me. I honestly can't tell how long he would actually do this because, like a staring contest, it is always me that gets bored with this game first, and he seemingly can tell from my fidgeting it is time to get up. This behavior is all the more surprising is that his other two modes of existence at this point in his life are eating voraciously, and bouncing around the room exploring and getting into everything. He has reached the point where his fear of new things has been superseded by curiosity for about %99 of the things in his world, and seemingly has infinite energy and enthusiasm at this point for exploring. He is very energetic. Maybe he needs the "blissed out" phases to rest?
So my question is has anyone had a bird that did this? Up to now he has loved to sit on my shoulder with his head pressed under my ear, and I had assumed it was some sort of latent nest behavior - that he liked the warmth and physical contact and that it was just a remnant part of his "baby-wiring". But now I'm wondering what is going on. Maybe it does line up with something biological, but it is new to me. He is a bit young to be hormonal, and I have many decades experience with what that looks like, and at least in the birds I have know it is nothing like this. Is it possible he is just a bird that likes to do this strange behavior? Any experiences, wisdom, or hypotheses that might help me to figure this out would be appreciated?
Which brings us to Goose, who is coming up on 6 months old. He has not had any prior experience of this type of thing before me, and I have never, ever tried to put him in this position. But in the last few weeks he has been literally rolling into this position in my arms and then going into "blissed out though %100 alert mode" for 20-30 minutes. The first time he surprised me and literally barrel-rolled off my shoulder down my arms onto the kitchen table. The next time I caught him and noticed that he was TRYING to do this. Now when he wants this I can feel him slowly start leaning until I bring my arms up to catch him, and then he rolls upside down. If I scratch his head or talk to him he pretty much will stay there absolutely still, just looking at me. I honestly can't tell how long he would actually do this because, like a staring contest, it is always me that gets bored with this game first, and he seemingly can tell from my fidgeting it is time to get up. This behavior is all the more surprising is that his other two modes of existence at this point in his life are eating voraciously, and bouncing around the room exploring and getting into everything. He has reached the point where his fear of new things has been superseded by curiosity for about %99 of the things in his world, and seemingly has infinite energy and enthusiasm at this point for exploring. He is very energetic. Maybe he needs the "blissed out" phases to rest?
So my question is has anyone had a bird that did this? Up to now he has loved to sit on my shoulder with his head pressed under my ear, and I had assumed it was some sort of latent nest behavior - that he liked the warmth and physical contact and that it was just a remnant part of his "baby-wiring". But now I'm wondering what is going on. Maybe it does line up with something biological, but it is new to me. He is a bit young to be hormonal, and I have many decades experience with what that looks like, and at least in the birds I have know it is nothing like this. Is it possible he is just a bird that likes to do this strange behavior? Any experiences, wisdom, or hypotheses that might help me to figure this out would be appreciated?
