My birds are definitely developing an attitude! They want to go everywhere in the house, whether I want them there or not. I think I may need to clip their wings again.

This afternoon I was watching TV when Silver started flocking calling, very, very loud and continuous. He was on top of the flight cage. I looked for Emma and couldn't see her. So, I went and looked in all the places she has been going of late. I was calling her name and Silver was flock calling. But, she wasn't calling back.

It took me several minutes or more to find her. I was doing a third or fourth pass through the kitchen when I heard some scratching. I thought she might have gone into a closet and gotten stuck there. Silver was sitting on my shoulder, still loudly flock calling.

I don't know exactly where she was. but all of a sudden she was on the floor in front of the dishwasher. We were all happy to see each other.

This was so interesting. I had never heard such insistent flock calling from Silver. He clearly knew she was missing, and wanted her back. And, after I found her, I definitely got the sense from Silver that he knew I had helped find her. When we found Emma, she spent quite a bit of time cleaning her feathers.

I'm glad you got her back! But if she was "hiding" from you, she may have been checking out a secluded area that would make a nice nest. So keep an eye on her lol.

LOL! You are probably right about the nest sights.

I am always scared when I can't find one of my birds and they are sitting there quietly. Especially Cuddles is famous of doing it, and Trillie also flock calls her loud until she is found (I am shouting out her name like crazy, too)
Glad you found Emma.

When Loki flew away I brought Rocko outside with me to help me look for her and he didnt make a sound.

Sometimes, either something will scare her, or she just feels like it, but Lucy will fly off to a different room, scream three times, and stay quiet. So I start looking for her, and she won't make a sound. Sometimes, I wonder if she enjoys watching me looking for her.

It's a pain when fledglings fly out of the bird room and get lost somewhere in the house, because they don't flock call like the adult birds do. Instead they stay silent, and I have to search until I can spot them visually. I don't know when they outgrow that stage and start flock calling like the adults, but Lucy's probably old enough now to act like an adult not a baby.

What does flock calling even sound like in a cockatiel? I've probably heard it before, but this is the first time I've heard the term "flock call"

Its just when their calling each other like when Rocko leaves the room Loki calls him but when Loki went missing Rocko didnt call her lol.

It's that loud shriek that they make when a flockmate leaves the room or when they want to know where you are. Most single cockatiels do it for their owner so you've probably heard it from Lucy. If not, then you can hear a cockatiel doing it in this video. Ignore the obnoxious whistling and yelling from the human.


When one of my birds flies out of the room, I hear this shrieking for a while from the birds who were left behind and also from the bird who flew off. It's a useful way to figure out where the flyaway bird went to. Unless the flyaway bird was a fledgling, in which case I hear shrieking from the bird room but nothing from the chick.