So something strange kinda... happened. I'm sitting here on my laptop, everything was completely quiet and peaceful. Then all of a sudden, I hear a total fit of flapping. There was a night terror.

Now, I don't know if I've mentioned this, but as far as I can tell, there are only two birds in my flock, that are prone to night terrors. One of them is Dudley, and while they happen once in a blue moon, they definitely happen. I've even been awake late enough to witness it a few times. There were times where I had to calm him down too, in which I do by reading him Sherlock Holmes (and as crazy as it may seem, I think he likes it).

The other bird that I know experiences night terrors, is Joey, the diamond dove. I found this out not too long after I go him. Since his cage is on top of Lucy's cage, that makes it harder to put the sheet over for Lucy. So there were a few nights where I didn't bother, and every once in a while, I'd hear a fit of flying, coming specifically from him. So since then, I've been sure to cover them both up with the sheet at 7 pm, so they can get their 12 hours of sleep, and Joey won't have to have night terrors.

Well this time, I couldn't really tell what was going on, but I could hear flapping from all three of them. Since their cages are so different from each other, I am able to tell who freaks out the most, from the sound of the wings hitting the bars (as well as how heavy the wing flapping is, due to their size ranges). In this case, it was Lucy who freaked out the most. So I decided to go uncover their cages, and see what's up.

Joey was sitting in his food bowl. That's not where he was when I covered him up, so he definitely reacted in some way or another. Lucy was indeed, freaked out. She was hanging on the cage bars, tail fanned out, and breathing rather quickly. I asked her to step up, and she did without objection. I took her out, and sat down with her. For quite a while, she just sat on my finger, crest straight up, and looking really skinny despite being well-fed (you know how bird are when they're scared), and flinching to the slightest sound she could here. It took several minutes of shushes and "it's ok"s, and she started feeling a little less scared. Then I start humming a tune that I hum to her every once in a while, or play on the piano, since she seems to like it. Then several move minutes of reassuring scritches, and she felt better.

I put her back in her cage, and made sure to see if Joey was alright, and he seemed ok. As flighty as his species is, he seems to take things surprisingly well (he could just feel comfortably, because he had food nearby, lol). I look over to Dudley's cage, and realize that he wasn't on the perch he usually sleeps on. He was on the floor. That's when I pieced it all together.

Dudley had the panic attack, and flew to the bottom of his cage. Lucy and Joey couldn't see what was going on, but the noise startled them. Possibly startled Lucy first, then Joey, and Joey getting startled got Lucy startled again. On top of that, Lucy is the one with the most objects in her cage, and so she probably hit some of them too, which startled her more. Meanwhile, Lucy being startled like that startled Joey again, as I heard them both flying at the same time, all while Dudley sat on the floor of his cage, wondering what the heck just happened.

I felt bad I didn't notice Dudley at first. I hung out near his cage, until I was sure that he was ok, and he was. He climbed back up to his perch shortly after, when I turned the light on.

Now they're all sleeping peacefully. Hopefully, nothing else will happen. I seriously need a sheet for Dudley's cage, though, for the sake of his own well being.

Cockatiels are notorious for night frights so it's surprising that Lucy is the one that's least prone to them, but good for her that she's not that easy to spook. When one bird freaks the others usually follow, so it's not surprising that you had all three birds going at once.

With my flock it's usually a mistake to take a bird out of the cage before it's completely calmed down, because it's almost guaranteed to spook again and then I've got a startled bird bouncing off the walls at a fairly high speed instead of smacking the cage bars at a lower speed. But if a different approach works for you then go for it. What works best for me is to turn on the light, uncover the front of the cage so the birds can see what's going on in the room, and wait 10 minutes or so for them to get calm and relaxed again.

Lucy's kind of odd, when she gets frightened. She will fly, but once she has flown, she'll just kind of freeze, not moving at all, with the only exception being me asking her to step up (which she doesn't object to when frightened, which is also odd).

I did watch a documentary that explained, that within the "fight or flight" response in humans, there's a hidden third response known as "freeze" where, as the name applies, you just freeze up. I wonder if that's in birds, too? While flight is the most common response in birds, I've seen the fight response in Dudley, so I wonder if it's possible possible for the freeze is possible to be found in birds. Lucy has a mixed reaction to being startled. Sometimes she'll fly, and sometimes she'll freeze, and usually she freezes, when she's with me.

So I wonder if she just feels safer around me, or something.

I don't know if birds freeze exactly, but quite often when they're concerned that there might be danger they will be still and quiet. In the wild, this would help prevent a predator from noticing them, and it's used a lot when they know there's a predator in the area but it's not an immediate threat. The flight response is used when they know there's an immediate threat, or think there could be an immediate threat but they're not sure about it.

She probably does feel safer with you. You're a flockmate after all, and you're a lot bigger and juicier than she is. A predator would either be scared of you, or would rather eat you than her.