- Now I thought about titling this video,
something like 202 body
language cues from your parrot
that are optimist interpreted.
But then I thought nobody
would stick around for all 200.
So I narrowed it down to the top four
that I could come up with
that I hear about the most
or that I see the most when
I'm working with parrots.
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and there's a lot that you
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The first one I want
to address is a top one
that everybody messes
up, including myself.
I fall for this one all the time,
and it is the cute things that parrots do
that aren't actually cute.
They don't mean something adorable.
They're actually a precursor to aggression
and they're very sneaky.
(parrot chirps)
If you've been on my channel before,
you know that I love
supporting parrot rescues
that are doing awesome things by birds.
I'm one of the ones that I love supporting
is Ronie's For The Love
Of Birds pararescue.
So a lot of the footage is actually gained
from their rescue when we were there
working with their birds
for a couple of days.
So I'm able to show this body language,
which I never have been able to before.
Everybody's always asked
me to make this video.
And I wanted to have examples to actually
show you guys what this stuff looks like.
So I finally do a, one of the cute things
that birds do that is often
misinterpreted is talking.
Talking can sound so adorable.
I once worked with a
45 year old blue friend
and Amazon parrot.
He used to say, "Get
over here, get over here,
come on over here."
And it was so that he could
grab your finger to bite you.
(parrot chirps)
Yeah, not so cute.
I also worked with an
Indian ring neck parakeet
that most of you might be familiar with.
He's one of my project
birds as well, Touche.
And every time he talked,
which was so adorable,
he was extremely heightened,
which almost always
quickly led to aggression,
which means I was gonna get bit.
So having to keep the whole
energy level down with him
was incredibly important,
but his talking was definitely
a precursor for aggression.
And this tends to be the
case with a lot of birds.
Because they learned to talk
at a heightened state of emotion.
So naturally sometimes when birds talk,
it ends up almost being
a cue for getting angry.
Now it's really important to figure out
which ones are precursors to aggression
and which ones are actually cute,
because there are some
that are actually cute.
It's just telling the difference
that can be really complicated.
So for example, I'm gonna
show you this next bird.
I was introduced to this
Blue and Gold Macaw,
told that it does a really cute wave.
It doesn't need a cue for it.
It just does it automatically,
doesn't require a word.
So that immediately got
my brain ticking thinking,
what is this wave?
So I'm gonna have you take a look at it
and tell me what you think this wave is.
Is it cute or is it aggression?
(parrot chirps)
All right, so I'm super interested
to hear in the comments,
whether or not you thought that bird
was just being adorable and waving at me,
or if you saw right through it and knew
that that bird was not
waving at me nicely anyway,
it was waving at me just not nicely.
So I'm gonna let you go ahead
and see that clip in its entirety,
to watch me and my husband worked through
and actually analyze
that parrot's behavior.
- [man] Yeah, right there.
(parrot chirps)
(parrot chirps)
- Did you see that?
- [man] Yeah, it's that wave
is almost paired with aggression.
- Yeah
(parrot chirps)
- [man] I'm curious,
here, keep this rolling.
(parrot chirps)
- Click scared him.
- [man] I wanna see how he is with me.
(parrot chirps)
- [Jamie] Oh, so much nice.
(laughs)
He hates me.
(parrot chirps)
- He is a bird we just met,
where you can tell that
it prefers men over women,
based on the body language.
And so if I was going to
be training this bird,
well, if we were training this bird,
I would probably start with it.
So that I'm training,
calm behaviors on cue,
and then transfer that over to Jamie.
So that Jamie is re...
Like let's say I'm training target on cue,
and she does it calm for me.
(parrot chirps)
Then she'll probably do a calm for Jamie.
And we'll get calm on
cue with a female because
that's a different track
than calm on cue with a male,
might need to subtitle that.
(parrot chirps)
- Some other examples of cute things
that birds do that aren't so cute,
are things like dancing.
Sometimes dancing can be really cute,
until it's not and everybody's diving
for cover under the furniture.
So dancing can be one of those things
where a bird does it as an
actual sign of aggression,
not as a sign for trying to entertain you
and give you some video
footage for TikTok.
(parrot chirps)
(indistinct chatter)
For every repetition.
(parrot chirps)
Playing, when a bird is
playing, it is adorable.
And lots of people love to play,
especially with blankets or pillows
or have their bird on the floor playing.
Or I had a client recently
who made a really fun box
for its bird to play in
and carved out a little
hole and everything.
Playing like that can often
lead to aggression real quick.
It turns into a game
of playing on the floor
to hiding your toes.
And it's the same thing
when it comes to blankets
or any sort of dark spaces,
those are just acting as
triggers for hormones.
And when you trigger hormones,
you're going to trigger aggression
because it just happens that bad.
(parrot chirps)
- [man] Oh my God!
(parrot chirps)
- [woman] Oh that is so cute.
(parrot chirps)
(parrot chirps)
- [Jamie] I think this is
something where people see,
Oh my bird loves the toy.
So Jamie go back in
and watch what happens.
(parrot chirps)
(bell rings)
- I'm a trigger for aggression.
- [man] Yeah.
So worth mentioning, that's not actually
- Play.
- [man] Play.
(parrot chirps)
- In the early stages
of learning parrot behavior for myself,
one of the hardest birds for me to read
was an Umbrella Cockatoo that
my husband had at the time.
And I remember vividly one
of my first experiences
with this Cockatoo and having no clue
what I was looking at,
was when we were playing with him
on our dining room table
and he would stand on the back of a chair
and he would jump onto the table and slide
and his crest would go up
and he would kind of do
a little dancing motion,
a little Strutton little Cockatoo stretch
for those familiar with Cockatoos.
And then he would jump
up on the next chair,
turn around and do it again.
And we were so excited,
we thought it was hilarious,
we thought it was cute,
we thought it was funny.
And so we of course were reacting as such
and cheering for him and laughing.
And then suddenly my husband said,
"Jamie, backup, get out
of the room, go away.
You need to get out.
We need to calm down all the things."
And I was like, "What changed?"
I thought we were all having a good time.
And that's why the cute
things are scary, (laughs)
is because they're cute until they're not,
it's really hard sometimes
for non bird people
or really inexperienced bird people,
to pick up on that transitional phase
where it goes from dancing and cute,
and everybody's having fun too,
blood is flying and limbs are falling off.
So I don't want you guys to lose hope
if your bird does any of these cute things
and you've accidentally reinforced these
and they have become
triggers for aggression,
don't lose hope.
You can change that trigger.
You can phase out aggression.
I've taught things to birds
who were literally grumbling.
And I felt like cursing me out (laughs)
while I was having a
training session with them.
And I was able to morph that session
from an aggressive target, for example,
to a completely calm target
that didn't involve any talking.
I worked with a Quaker at Ronnie's,
who was just grumbly and just
having a heyday talking to me.
I don't know what he was saying,
but I know it wasn't compliments.
And then by the end,
he actually did a really nice,
quiet, non talking target
that was very, very gentle.
So it is possible to work
through these things,
half the battle or even
more than half the battle,
is just being aware of them.
(parrot chirps)
No, we don't want that,
We want gentle.
(parrot chirps)
Can you be gentle?
(parrot chirps)
No we want gentle.
(parrot chirps)
Good girl, did you get that?
(parrot chirps)
I want gentle.
(parrot chirps)
We want gentle.
(parrot chirps)
(beak clicks)
Oh! Gotta be so specific with this bird.
(parrot chirps)
(beak clicks)
This one is targeting really gently.
(parrot chirps)
(beak clicks)
(parrot chirps)
(beak clicks)
All right, number two,
this is another hard one.
And my daughter is actually currently
learning this one because of
what she just went through,
working with Ronnie's
Rescue Birds as well.
Earlier last year,
she worked with a Quaker
parrot named Lefty
and she had an instant connection.
Their chemistry was amazing
and they just had this awesome
relationship from day one.
It was super impressive.
And the way that she worked and trained
and just was with this bird
was just mind boggling to me.
And she met a new Quaker named Abby,
who you guys have seen a little
bit of footage of thus far.
Who's over 20 years old
is also a male Quaker
and was from the same rescue.
And it's very, very important
that you guys always
start with a clean slate.
So if you've had the same
species of bird in the past,
you had bird experience in the past.
You've got to let all that go
and just start with a clean slate
with this new bird that
you're working with.
Don't ever assume that your last bird
is just like the current one
that you're working with,
or you're going to like your new bird.
So if you had a Cockatoo in the past,
don't assume that your new Cockatoo,
is going to have the
exact same body language,
the exact same likes and dislikes
and characteristics of
your previous Cockatoo.
This was something my
daughter had to learn,
because she immediately wanted to work
with this Quaker parrot,
just having such a good experience
with Lefty the Quaker parrot.
So she immediately opened the cage
and then realized real quick
that Abby was not gonna be
stepping up anytime soon.
So I think it's incredibly important
that even if you have a lot
of experience with birds,
you don't carry all of that.
I guess almost like fax over
and assume that one African Grey
is gonna be just like another African Gey.
There may be certain traits
where there are more
naturally phobic animals,
just because we know that to
be true about African Greys.
However, what they're actually phobic of
or how they handle that phobia
or how they work through
that phobia, can be completely different.
So having just throwing
away any sort of assumptions
and not carrying them with you,
just working with that clean
slate with your other bird,
is incredibly important.
And one of the things that I feel like
almost handicaps people into
misreading body language.
I almost think that they walk into it,
expecting something and
seeing what they want to see
or seeing what they expect to see
versus seeing what's actually there.
So make sure that the bird is always able
to tell you the truth
that you aren't taking it
from other sources, from other experiences
or other responses you've had from other
birds or your friend's bird.
And don't carry that over.
You know, it was something
that I was guilty of
because only had experience
with a Quaker parrot
that was a friend of mines
and it was so grouchy and grumbly.
And I just thought,
Oh! I'm not really a big
fan of Quaker parrots.
And then I met Lefty and I
fell in love with the species.
And I just thought,
gosh! how judgy of me to carry all of that
from one Quaker parrot over to the next.
You really can't do that.
And it sets you up for failure if you do.
All right, number three is eye pinning.
So eye pinning is when the
birds pupil gets big and small,
and it happens when they're
trying a new yummy food,
when they're seeing another bird,
maybe for the first
time that excites them.
Anything that really excites them
or heightened them in a sense,
my two Macaws, Comet
and Tusa are brothers.
And although I house them
separately, as much as possible,
I also bring them together
quite often as well
when I feel like they want to be together.
And when they first come
together on the interaction,
their eyes are going crazy.
Their whole body language is really big,
but they're often saying
"Hello, hello, hello,"
very seriously to each other.
They're so excited to see each other.
However, it can escalate
to aggression real quickly.
So you have to be hyper
aware of eye pinning
because it's another one
that can be a precursor to aggression.
So while my Macaws are so
excited to see each other,
I would never shove my face in their face.
So it's kind of one of those things
when your bird is heightened in any sense.
You never really wanna get so close
that you could get bit in the face
or anything like that.
I've seen people with Cockatoos,
that get overly, overly excited
and they try to calm them
down by shoving their face
into the Cockatoos chest
or into the Cockatoos face.
And it's something that terrifies
me to even witness or see.
So eye pinning just remember
it's at a heightened state.
So sometimes it can be a great thing,
especially if your bird is
enjoying a brand new food
that you gave it.
But on the other hand,
it could be when it learned to talk
and it learned to say a curse word
that heard it at a heightened state,
when people in the household were fighting
and it just associates it negatively.
So make sure that you're
looking at the behavior
all the way through and
not just on the surface.
- Hello.
- Hello.
- Hello.
- Hello.
- Hello.
- Hello.
- Hello.
(laughs)
- Hello.
- Hello.
(laughs)
- Hi.
- Hello.
- Hello, hello.
- Hello.
- Hello.
(laughs)
Hello.
Hello.
- Hello.
- All right my last one is number four
and this one is misinterpreted
by people all the time,
which hence why it's on my list.
This is when your bird puts his head down.
So say you ask for it to step up
or you put your hands there
with the intention of having
your bird step up onto it.
And instead of stepping onto your hand,
your bird puts its head down
so that you can't get to its feet.
What does this mean?
Tell me in the comments right now,
I'm gonna take a little
slight breather for you.
Tell me in the comments,
what it means when your bird does this,
I'd love to know.
All right, I'm super curious to see
what you guys said in the comments.
Hopefully you left a comment below
and you got to read
through and scroll through
and see what other people
said about their birds.
But usually when a bird
is putting their head down
to kind of block the area to their feet,
it means scratch my head.
- [girl] He only wants forward scratches.
- Or it means no, I don't wanna step up.
- [girl] Honey come on.
Honey get up.
- Birds really only resort to biting
when you ignore everything else
that they try to tell you
and communicate to you
through every other way.
If you miss it or you
intentionally ignore it,
which is usually the case when
a bird puts its head down,
then they just go and they
resort right to biting.
And eventually they develop a habit
of no longer showing you all those signs
before the biting and just
resorting straight to the bite,
because they've learned
that you don't respond to anything else.
Now, some birds are incredibly
intelligent about this.
I have a Galah, female Galah named Bondai.
She's incredibly social.
And she literally picks the weakest link.
So she loves my grandmother
and she'll go up on her shoulder,
because she knows that my
grandma doesn't know to stop her
and enjoys talking with
her up on her shoulder
and she'll chat there,
but then she'll find a mole
or a skin tag or a freckle,
or something that she feels like
shouldn't be part of my grandmother's body
and she'll try to remove it for her.
And it's a time when my grandma usually
wants her to come off of the shoulder
and Bondai will put her
head down to block her
so that she can't do it.
She can't get her to
step up onto her hand.
And so it's something where
Bondai is manipulating my grandma,
because she knows that my grandma's
not sure what to do to get her
to come off of her shoulder.
And most of the time,
my grandma's like, Oh,
you don't wanna come down,
okay, I'll scratch your head instead.
And it's just reinforcing the fact
that Bondai doesn't wanna come down.
So it's kinda one of those domino effects.
You really have to see what you're doing
after the behavior that you're getting,
so that you can see is that a consequence
that the bird actually wants
and you've accidentally reinforced it.
There's a lot of accidental reinforcement
and punishment that goes on
in the home with parrots.
It's just recognizing it,
that is a huge battle of it.
Once you know, what's going on,
it's very easy to reverse
and fix and stop bad habits.
It's just understanding
that you have them in the first place.
So the head down behavior is something
that personally irks me to have a bird do.
(laughs)
So I don't like when a bird
has to tell me no in that way.
Normally I can tell
that a bird is saying no
from a greater distance away
before I get ahead down.
Oh, what a good girl.
You guys are probably wondering
what the solution is for that.
And the solution is
make it more worthwhile
for the bird to say, yes,
what could make it more worthwhile?
Could it be a piece of a nut
or a seed or your bird's favorite treat?
Could it be just the fact
of humming to your birds favorite human,
might be the reinforcement all on its own,
but finding that incentive
to give the bird,
to make the choice on its own.
Because if a bird feels
forced into a decision,
that's when you're going
to get the behaviors
that you don't wanna see.
Because it's gonna feel
like it has no choice,
but to make the choice that you want.
And so you're going to get a
lashing out behavioral wise.
You really wanna find
a way to get the bird,
almost manipulate the bird back
into making the decision
you want it to make.
But you've gotta make it worthwhile.
And if that's through his favorite treat,
that's a really ideal option
because it's positive
reinforcement time and time again.
And if your bird feels
like that's worth it,
it's awesome way to go.
I hope this video shed some light
on the common behaviors from parrots
that are misinterpreted by us humans.
Because Hey, we're only human.
It happens, and we're all
learning all the time.
Every single bird is unique.
So not every situation
is going to be the same.
Just like people are
unique in how you handle it
or how you're interpreting it
may be different than somebody else.
So if you guys are wondering
how to gain experience,
understanding, and being able to read
and interpret proper body
language from parrots,
I highly recommend that
you volunteer your time
to work with a variety of parrots.
Volunteer your time at a rescue,
or even for your neighbor
or friend that you know has a bird,
maybe needs to board
it maybe needs a sitter
or maybe go over there
to do some training,
just to learn parrot behavior better.
I think anything like that is helping
the Avian community as a whole.
And goes a long, long way
for your own experience
and your own identity through
understanding parrots.
The other tip I wanna give
that usually everybody
gets real angry about,
(Jamie laughs)
is not listening to other people.
Collect your data and your knowledge
and your truths from what
the bird communicates
and tells you, not from the humans around.
Because everybody's perception
is going to be a little bit different.
I know that for my personal experience,
my mother-in-law once interpreted
that her Macaw loved bathing
when he actually viewed it as punishment.
So if I would have taken
that as 100% truth,
I would have set myself up
and the bird up for disaster
and failure by immediately
punishing the bird
with what I was told was
actually reinforcement.
So you've gotta be really, really careful.
And it's always up to the bird to decide
what is reinforcement
and what is punishments.
So you have to be open to
letting the bird communicate
and tell you that.
And that's all I mean, so, sorry humans.
(Jamie laughs)
I know I get a lot of crap
for this point of view of telling,
telling people not to listen
to the people around them,
but I really feel like the
bird knows itself best.
Thank you guys so much
for watching this video.
Please let me know if
it helped you or not.
I would love to know,
and always am looking forward
to your guys's feedback.
Also, if you're looking for a
way to support Rescue Birds,
please consider splurging
and getting some project
bird pins for yourself.
In a collaboration with Hyper
Finch over on Instagram,
we have made a pin collection
representing both my project birds
and my own flock of birds.
And 100% of our proceeds goes towards,
Ronnie's For The Love Of Bird pararescue.
So don't feel guilty.
Go over there and grab some pins.
