Over the past few months, Zuri has become a bit of a bully. Most of the time, he just chases the others around for the fun of making them leave; he's quite successful at this with Joey but on the rare occasion that Joey stands his ground, Zuri just leaves.
But, his attitude with Petey of late hasn't been so innocent.
He actually gets closer and closer to Petey before attempting to dive bomb him. Of course, my boyfriend or myself will intervene in these occasions, before there is any injuries (or when they happen, it's often to our hands).
In old posts, I have mentioned how mean Petey could be with the other birds; this has become less and less of a problem over these past few months. In fact, on the few occasions that Zuri has managed to successfully dive bomb Petey, I was more concerned for Petey's sake, since Zuri seems to become relentless in those moments.
He has recently turned two years old. I do feel like it might be the reason behind all of this - I do believe that he does recognize Meyer's from other Poicephalus - back when I watched my parents' Senegal and Meyer's, he would leave the Senegal alone but would try to get to the Meyer's (and she to him), specially in the first few days. When it became obvious that his position wasn't going to be taken by Itsy, he did calm down. I do wonder if at this time he's not trying to assert himself as the "top" male Meyer's between himself and Petey.
In any case, it's the first time I've actually had to dealt with a bird really going through these type of changes at the age of two - Piper and Shade's "terrible twos" went smoothly and Joey was almost 3 when I did get him (he was a bit more nippy back then I'll have to admit) and Petey was 13.
It will be interesting.
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