I've seen some parrots react to watching other of their species on youtube, cockatiels included. Could probably work for her. I'd like to give her some time to bond with me, before doing that. Don't want her bonding to my laptop or ipad.

So we clipped her nails. It's safe to say she didn't like it much. It made letting her onto my shoulder much easier now though, since they weren't digging into my skin so much.

After the nail trimming, I held her to my chest and pet her to calm her down, as I took her to my room. She's not comfortably enough to explore a whole bunch, but she's getting better. I've been trying to use her enjoying my hair as a reward. Step up from the floor and she gets to play with it for a couple minutes. I forgot to have the clicker with me, but I hope the "good girl" would be enough to let her know that she did something good (I always say that when training her with the clicker). We've put off target training for now. Once she gets a little more comfortable in my room, I think I'll start back up with it.

The nice thing about this type of reward is that there's a direct relationship between her action (stepping up) and what it leads to. There's no real connection between stepping up and getting a food reward, unless the reason you picked her up in the first place was because you wanted to feed her. But stepping up and being delivered to your shoulder - yeah! We usually ask birds to step up because we want to take them somewhere, and if the destination is a place that she likes, she'll see the connection and realize that it's worthwhile to cooperate.

Progress is slowly being made, when taking her to my room. She's tolerating scritches a little more. The longest she went was about 3-4 seconds.

I tried your advice, Carolyn, and lowered my head in front of her. It seems she took it as an invitation to climb on top of it.

She's a bit timid when she's on the floor, but that's understandable. Everything looks so big to her. I decided to let her explore my bed. It lets her check out the few things on there, and she has a pretty good view of everything else, from there.


I keep my curtains closed while in there, but at one point, I decided to hold her to the window and let her look.



She didn't really get intimidated, until she put her beak to the window and realized it was solid. I think the saw it as some kind of witchcraft.
She did seem interested in what was out there though. I don't think she's ever seen my front yard, before now. Even though there was no one out there (during the time of day and temperature outside, it's very understandable), and no wild birds hanging out. Just a big oak tree in our front yard. She still seemed interested though. Some day, I might get her a harness or flight suit, so she can go outside with me, on walks, or just to hang out in the back yard. That won't be until way later, when she trusts me more, though.

I have mini blinds on my bird room windows, and I keep the blinds down with the slats open during the daytime, so the birds can see outside but there's a "cage bars" effect across the glass so they don't crash into it. Being able to see outside is normal for her, but your yard will look different of course. Actual contact with the window glass is new for her!

Cockatiels are ground feeders in the wild, but they also feel more vulnerable on the ground than they are when they're up high. It's good to let her explore your bed, it's flat like the ground but it's up higher so it's a little bit of everything. You can spread an old sheet on top of it if you don't want her pooping on the bedspread

Her bird poop is relatively easy to clean up, so it hasn't served a problem yet. If I find it to be a bit more of a nuisance though, I will consider it.

I've noticed that out of every object I've shown her, she seems to like the ones that make some kind of melodious sound, like my music boxes (I collect them). I've also had her on my shoulder while playing on my keyboard for a bit. She stopped with my hair for a bit, and listened. I have two small music boxes that requires to turn a small handle. I played it, then set it neat her. She tried to turn the handle.

Then I had a wind-up music box with a mirror, and showed it to her. She was more interested in the part that actually makes the music, rather than the mirror, as opposed to the usual mirror toys she's seen before. I think she's starting to like me, since she didn't bother paying attention to the "other bird" in front of her.

It seems Lucy likes my glasses. She'll chew on them every chance she gets, to the point where if I put her in front of my face, she'll chew on them, and even use her foot to try and hold them while chewing.

Then if I take them off, she'll go for my eyelashes.

Maybe she just wants my eyes? I'm seeing more and more of her personality, during every session with her in my room. I think she's starting to really open up to me.

Though she's still not very tolerable of head scritches, yet. I hope one day, she'll learn to love them.

She's still not wanting to step up onto my finger when in her cage. She doesn't like being grabbed either (can't imagine why she would), so I'm hoping to work on getting her to step up from inside. I'm hoping that some day, we will get there, despite having a predator intimidating her during my attempts.

I can't move her cage into my room, because there's no room, and also because my dog sleeps there at night. It would ruin the whole "no dog zone" impression I'm trying to give her. If I can socialize her to my dog (and train my dog to pay no attention to her when the cage door's open), that would most likely help the situation.

I don't know what it is with my dog, and staring at birds. He does it to Dudley all the time. My dog has an unusual taste for birdseed, and eats any he finds dropped on the floor (he is able to tell the difference between empty shells, and uneaten seeds), so maybe it's his way of begging, like he does at the dinner table. It could also be his terrier instinct wanting to catch smaller animals. Whatever the reason is, I'm going to try and break him of the habit.

Lucy is such a pretty girl! She really is lovely. I am so pleased to hear that she's starting to come out of her shell.

Lucy's father once snapped the earpiece off my glasses WHILE I WAS WEARING THEM. So it runs in the family lol. Parrots in general tend to like glasses since they have shiny parts and the earpieces are sort of like twigs, and they like to chew on twigs.

They like to preen eyelashes and eyebrows too, as well as the hair on our heads. Hair is the most featherlike part we have so it's the closest they can get to the feeling of preening another bird.

Funny how she'll preen me, but doesn't ask to be preened back. And if I offer, she rejects. She tries to preen my eyelashes when my eyes are open, so I usually close them, because I'm not good with things close to my eyes while they're open (have a horrible time with eye doctors).

Though she's more tolerable of me doing it with my nose, for whatever reason. Maybe because it closely resembles a beak, more than my fingers do?

Carolyn, how do you approach your birds when you're going to give them scritches? I do it slowly, but maybe it's the angle I'm approaching from.