I'm not talking about Lucy this time. I'm talking about the cockatiel in this video. Out of all the cockatiels I've been around I've been around, I don't think I've seen one that acts quite like this. At first it looks like a cockatiel doing a normal courtship dance to the conure, and this it starts clicking and bobbing it's bead up and down. I asume it picked up the clicking, probably it's owner. I've seen Conures bob their heads, but not quite as fast. I know it's common among many parrots (my pionus bobs his head), but I didn't think cockatiels did it too.



This one seems like it's desperately trying to impress the conure, though the conure doesn't seem to be interested.

Its perfectly normal. The cockatiel is doing a courting behavior for male that is called beak banging. He isn't banging it against something which makes it look like head bobbing but he is really banging his beak in the air.

He's a cutie lol. A little bit odd though, his sounds are unusual and he stands more upright than most cockatiels. Most males don't bob their heads that fast during courtship, but that's about the same speed as the bobbing motion they use when they're feeding chicks. It's normal behavior, just a little more individualized than the average cockatiel.

Ah ok. I've seen them beak bang before, but never in the air. Though if he wants to beak bang so badly why doesn't he just bang the chair with his beak?

I thought the way he was standing was a little strange too. I thought it might have been raised with the Conure, and picked up it's behavior. Thing is though, I looked up a Conure courtship dance, and it was completely different.

Every bird is an individual, and maybe that's just the way he stands when he's courting conures lol. Or maybe he's not quite right physically and stands that way all the time. It's common for males to head bob while they're courting without banging their beak on anything, and he just does it faster than most.

He's cute!

That could be it Carolyn. I've had some interesting individuals in the past, and not just cockatiels. I had a canary that sang when he heard finches, or other cockatiels. He didn't sing much when I played recordings of his own kind singing, though.

I had a cockatiel once that did a form of beak banging... He banged his beak on the bars, but rather than just hitting the bars, he actually grabbed onto bars with his beak and do it (I might have talked about him in my introductory thread. His name was Pecky). Basically, he'd practically vibrate the cage doing it, and it sounded like one of those cartoon woodpeckers that pecked unrealistically fast. lol

Indeed he is cute, Dianne. I couldn't help but giggle at his attempt to woo the conure (especially when there was a female cockatiel that showed up later in the video).

Oh gosh, I didn't mean to quote. I mean't to edit... Oops. How do I delete posts?

Its ok. Mistakes happen. We members can't delete posts but we can request a post deleted (like you already did) and when tielfan sees it, she will delete it.

I deleted the extra post.

A couple of my males do something that I call "the little drummer tiel". They'll get right up next to the cage bars or some other surface and move their head back and forth very fast like a human shaking their head "no" so that their beak knocks against the bars or surface. It sounds like a drum roll.

Elvis sometimes likes to whistle with his head down in a seed cup. The acoustics must be good in there.