Sunday, December 12, 2010

Shade's behaviour

Although I don't want to set human sentiments on birds, it really seems like there is some jealousy going on. Most certainly with Shade. Why would I say that? Normally twice per year she gets a bit distant. I think this is normally when hormone kicks in and this generally always happen in late fall/early winter and in the spring. Instead of getting mean, she just gets a bit more independent and a bit more grouchy with the other birds. I've noticed over the last week or two that she's been getting in that "mood" - she doesn't want to cuddle as much and just does her thing. Having "competition" around has made things interesting. Just like yesterday, although she was perfectly content being on on her own, the moment Nemo showed up she had to show that she was #1 bird. She's been doing the same with Pixel lately as well - I normally take Shade first then move onto Pixel and when offering to Shade to spend time with me, she either doesn't come over or steps up, stays on my shoulder for 2 minutes and then flies off, at which point I go and get Pixel. But the moment I have Pixel on me, she wants to be there. I've had Pixel since June and while it was bit of an adjustment for Shade for the first week or so, that routine (Shade first, Pixel second) worked fine.

While a lot of birds get aggressive when hormones kick in, I just never saw this with Shade. Even now, it's not outright aggression anyways. At this point, it just seems like she's more insistent on letting all the other birds know she's "head bird" when it comes to me and she does this by insisting to be on me when others are and being rather possessive of my shoulder - not by showing any aggression to myself, quite the contrary, she cuddles as close to my head as she can and will.not.budge.

1 comment:

HungryBird said...

Haha that's pretty funny! I know when I am boarding dogs my own dog always does what he is told and looks at me as if to say "See, I'm being a good boy, I know what to do!". He is an angel when I am boarding another dog. He gives the other dogs scathing looks as if to say "You fool, don't you know you aren't supposed to stick your head in the trash!".

Sometimes he picks up their bad habits. One dog I boarded kept trying to eat the trash and for two days after he left my dog would make little trash-eating attempts. It's funny because my dog is very well trained when it comes to not going in the trash or eating food from my plate but when he sees others dogs doing it it gives him ideas...