So I've been working on trying to get the birds to fly to me upon calling. Today I tried with Alex. I perched him on the back of a chair, and held my hand out a few inches away from him. After a few seconds, he flew and landed on my hand.

I got excited, and though I was quiet, my voice was high pitched and cheery as I said "good job!"

This got him so excited, that he began to fly around the room, which freaked Lucy out and caused her to fly around the room. It was chaos for a few seconds, and in the end, Lucy landed on the table back where she started, while Alex landed on my head, the place that he prefers to fly to when I least want him to.

So I guess this could be considered a success? He did land on my hand, even if for a split second.

Definitely a work in progress for the both of them. I'll have to remember not to get so excited with Alex. I expect him to learn quickly from here on out though. Considering Lucy just started to fly to me willingly, it's hard to tell how long this will take her. She might learn fairly quickly by watching Alex.

It's kind of funny when they take off all scared about something you wouldn't have know they would be afraid. Yesterday my two tiels freaked out when I came into the living room with my rolled up purple yoga mat.

Definitely. Though half the time, I'm not sure if it's because Alex gets scared, or just too excited. He gets overly excited very easily, and that ends in two ways: aggressively, and in flapping chaos.

Sometimes, it's over small things, like when he's playing with something shiny. He just gets really into it and then begins to straight up attack it. He's done this to my ring before. He'll chew on it, get all excited, then he spreads his wings out and starts biting my hand. Luckily, he's not a hard biter.

The other way is that he'll start flapping in place for a few seconds, which escalates to taking off and flying in circles until he either regains his composure and lands, or crashes somewhere. Sometimes he'll crash, and when you think he's done, he starts flying around more.

I do have a method of calming him down. There's a tune I hum to him that calms him down in seconds. It started when he was still being weaned. I'd use it when he would make the "feed me" cry for reasons other than food. It also helped in keeping his crying to a minimum while waiting for the food to heat up. To this day, the humming still calms him in seconds.

Alex is probably in the "terrible twos" stage right now. So his behavior is going to be a little crazy. Young birds are like children who run around for no real reason, except they use their wings instead of their legs.

So I've done a little more training. Today's session had a rough start. He wanted to fly every BUT to my hand.

The first three times he came to me, he landed on my back once (I was half bent over) and on my head twice, despite having my hand closer to him than my head.

So we took a break, as I let him and Lucy play on the table. At one point I got my camera out, and naturally they both wanted to play with the shiny thing that has buttons they can chew on. Alex decided that he's not going to wait, and flew to the hand that was holding the camera. I move said hand away from the camera and he still managed to land on it. I gave him a lot of praise for actually landing on my hand, and then decided to try once more with the training.

I got him to fly to me three more times, and each time he landed on my hand.

So we're moving forward! It seems that he's motivated by play as much as he is praise. Not very interested if I'm holding food, but if I have something that looks fun and shiny, he definitely goes for it. Also loves his scritches, so rewarding him certainly isn't difficult.

Maybe that's why he goes for my head, Because he likes to play with my hair and glasses.

Additionally, I attempted to do the same with Lucy. I let her perch on the back of the chair I've been using for the training, held my hand out like I did Alex, and called her. She fluffed her feathers and started to preen herself. I may have to use a different approach to get Lucy interested.

Lucy's mother is VERY food motivated. Does Lucy take after her mom?

Your doing very well....
good luck sounds like you wont need it tho!

So far, it seems to depend for Lucy's motivation. In certain aspects, she's quite food motivated. In fact, the playstand I got for them didn't really "appeal" to her until I filled up the two little bowls with food.
Other times, she tends to be very motivated by play. Always having to do one thing or another, for the sake of doing it. The world is her toy and if it's not meant to be eaten, it's meant to be chewed on. I taught her to step up for me by making stepping up associated with being able to play with my hair.
She's also learned to love scritches, and has learned to trick me into bringing my hand over for her to step up, only for her to lower her head for scritches.

I might have to get into clicker training her again. She already knows it means reward, so it might be easier.

Sounds like her sister Snowy. Snowy often refuses to step up unless I pet her first. But she'll comply after I meet her demands.