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This is a new thing, and it seems odd to me. Simon is 27 months old. For the past two weeks, he has disliked me in the late afternoons. He likes me in the morning and adores me in the evening, but he doesn't like me in the late afternoons. Our usual schedule: The birds come out of their houses when I get up in the morning, and they stay out for about an hour. They go back in when their breakfast is ready. I go to work for the day. After work, around 5:00, I come home and let them all out of their houses for about an hour. They go back in when dinner is ready. Depending on what else is going on, they might come out again later in the evening. Anyway, lately Simon has been aggressive when I go to let him out of his house after work. He puffs up and lunges and bites if I try to offer my hand to step up. When he acts like this, I close the door to his house and try again in a few minutes. Sometimes it takes three or four attempts before he'll come out. It seems like he's a bit scared of me at that time of day. I don't understand this. I'm his favourite person the rest of the time. What's going on? (Oh, and in other news, he can sing the theme song from the Addams Family now.)

Thanks Nancy.

Yes, she said lots of people provide their parrots with foraging opportunities in their cages, but it's more important that they can forage outside of their cages. I didn't know that. She suggested starting with a bowl full of river rocks on the coffee table, with treats hidden in amongst the rocks. He'll have to move the rocks to find the treats. She said that'll keep him busy and out of trouble, while providing lots of stimulation and mimicking the natural environment.

Thanks Timbersmom. I think Simon's adjusting. I still feel a little sad about trimming him, but it really has alleviated a lot of the stress we were all feeling about his increasing aggression and unpredictable behaviour. All the people and pets were becoming scared of him....except for Oboe the lovebird, who saw him as his partner in crime, and who loved flying with him.

I'm doing my best.

Simon's the best eater of all my birds. He likes everything. For pellets, he eats Harrison's. (The other birds prefer Tropican.)

Okay, so the avian vet trimmed his wings today. She also discussed his behaviour issues, weighed him (458 grams), did a CBC, a vent swab, trimmed one of his toenails, gave me two videos (one about foraging, another about behaviour), and provided me with some insight. She thinks he just has too much freedom, and he's taking advantage of it. He needs to be reined in a bit and learn that he's not the boss of the whole household. She also recommended that I spent some time with him each day doing some training, and provide him with more things to do when he's out of his cage. (He's got tons of toys in his cage and is never bored. But outside of his cage he's just got a climber and a couple of boings and me....so he creates havoc to entertain himself.) I feel better. (Simon's feeling very subdued tonight.)

Thanks Harmar. I'm taking Simon to the vet today and will discuss clipping and other options. I feel bad about clipping him since he loves flying and his flight feathers have finally grown back in after the clipping his breeder gave him as a baby. My plan had been to leave him fully flighted, as flying is probably the very best thing about being a bird. It's his superpower! But if it'll help with his behaviour problems, I'm willing to do it. Maybe even just temporarily, until he gets through this phase, and then I'll let them grow back again.

This morning was bad. Simon was in an unusually aggressive mood right from the start, as soon as I opened his cage door. He was biting me and he didn't like that Kazoo, the Amazon, was on my partner's shoulder - he kept flying and swooping at her and shrieking and challenging her. Later, my partner put Kazoo on the boing, and a few minutes later Simon flew onto the boing and started a fight with her. I was watching but I still don't really know what happened. It was fast. They were lunging at each other, and suddenly she was screaming in pain and he flew away. She kept screaming, and her beak was opening and closing and it was like she was retching or something. She was traumatized and in pain. Simon flew back to us, where we gathered around the boing trying to take care of her. He landed on me, and I put him back in his cage. (I think he wanted to go back in. He was traumatized by the whole thing too.) After a few minutes Kazoo let me pick her up and she started settling down, and she was okay after awhile. But Simon started flapping and screaming in his cage, like he was scared. So we had to calm him down and reassure him that everything was okay. He wasn't himself for hours though - he didn't even eat breakfast, and he loves breakfast. I brought him out in the afternoon - just him, by himself - and we went upstairs and just sat and did some target training. He liked that. Then we had a shower, which he enjoyed. But this evening he was quite bitey and nervous again. I don't know what to do. I don't believe in clipping birds, but maybe in his case it might help? I'm going to make an appointment for him to see the vet and see what she thinks.

Kazoo has a crush on her pellet dish.

He might very well be masturbating....two of my three birds masturbate, and I'm sure Simon will start soon. Perfectly natural and there's nothing wrong with it, just like with people.

That was actually my next question...how long does it last? Do you let her on shoulders now, or was that a permanent banishment? It's so confusing. I know Simon likes me. When he's out of his cage, he just wants to hang out with me, and he wants my undivided attention. This morning he even flew upstairs to be with me. (He has never flown upstairs before.) He was so pleased with himself. But half an hour later, while I was making his breakfast, he bit my face for no apparent reason. If I understood WHY he was biting me, it would be easier. But it just seems so random and unprovoked, and that makes it much scarier.

Any suggestions?

For parrots, as a developmental stage, is the terrible twos the equivalent of human terrible twos or more like human adolescence?

He's also going out of his way to bite the other birds and the dog. Twice he has snuck up on the dog and bitten her ear. And then he whimpers at her in her own voice. She has been very good about it, just looking startled and backing away. My Amazon, Kazoo, is 15 and a total sweetheart, just a laid-back, peace-loving bird, and he has been challenging her to fights lately and making her nervous. He's also flying like a maniac, dive-bombing people and animals and freaking everybody out. He's so fast! And this place isn't very big! He's terrorizing the whole household. Except Oboe, the lovebird, who thrives on all the action and excitement, and loves having a buddy to fly with. (Although Simon brushed him in mid-flight a couple days ago, and Oboe was knocked out of commission for about 15 minutes.) I really don't mind most of this stuff...it's the biting and the trust issues that bother me the most. I was always his favourite person, and now I'm becoming scared of him. I'm very sad about that.

I'm really worried about Simon. He's 22 months old, and over the last couple of months, but particularly the last couple of weeks, I've been having a lot of problems with him. The one that worries me the most is biting. He never used to bite me, and now he bites me - quite hard, and for no apparent reason. He has broken the skin a bit a couple of times now. He's moody and can be loving and friendly one moment and then suddenly he can be hostile and aggressive. When he's like that, he won't step up when I ask, so I have to wait until he's ready before I can put him back in his cage. I feel like I have no control over him when he's like this. And frankly I'm starting to get scared of him because I can't trust him, and I'm sure he can sense that. I don't want him on my shoulder anymore, because I don't trust him - but after two years of having shoulder rights, he figures he's entitled. How do I keep him off my shoulder? And how do I get him to stop biting me? I've tried ignoring it, as suggested, but the problem's getting worse, not better. I'm worried that if it gets much worse, we're going to head into a downward spiral in which I won't want to let him out of his cage, and he'll become more aggressive and less tame, and eventually I'll be thinking about finding him a new home. I love him very much and I don't want to even contemplate that outcome, so I need some help figuring out what's going on and how to fix it. Thanks.

Simon doesn't pin either.

Thank you for sharing that. It was really inspiring, and interesting too. Simon has fallen a couple of times during the night, too, and he seems quite frightened and disoriented afterwards. The most recent time was during an earthquake. It was a couple hundred miles away and most people here didn't feel it. It wasn't enough to wake me up, and my other birds didn't seem bothered by it. But Simon fell off his perch and was flapping around in a panic when I came running downstairs to help him. I picked him up and he was still panicky, and he started flying around the dark room, which didn't help. It was only after that I found out about the earthquake, and the timing coincided exactly.

It's a good thing he's got some wonderfulness going on, because he's also being a brat these days. He's biting for fun, flying at the other animals and people and swerving at the last possible milisecond, and looking for trouble pretty much every second he's out of his cage. He steals things he knows he's not allowed to have and then flies up to the highest places with them so we can't retrieve them easily. Etcetera. So "I love you" came at a very good time.

Simon's a bit of a late bloomer, but at 21 months old he now has a wee vocabulary. His first word was Wow, his second word was Peekaboo, his third word was Hello, and this morning he said I love you. Peekaboo is still his favourite word - he says it all the time. His latest thing is he likes to take all his foot toys out of his stainless steel bucket, and then stick his head in the bucket and yell Peekaboo! Because peekaboo sounds very different when you yell it into a bucket. He says it with his head in the bucket, then with his head out of the bucket, then with his head in the bucket, over and over again. Peekaboo is pretty darned cute, but my heart melted in a puddle at my feet when he said I love you.

I just tried to order it from them, and they say it's unavailable from the manufacturer. So I ordered it from iherb.com instead. If anybody else wants to order it from iherb, you'll get a discount if you use the code CUY611 when checking out. (It's $11.01 before the discount there, so Dave's place is cheaper when they have it.)

Maggie/Jay, thanks so much for that. You make it sound like it's a positive development in their relationship, which makes me feel so much better. I will try not to see it as bullying, and I will make quality time for each of them individually. Should I do that privately, away from the other birds? Or in front of them?

Simon Grey is 20 months old. I've had him for 17 months. Kazoo is a 15-year-old DYH Amazon. I've had her for 22 months. They've never been friends. They were both afraid of each other, so they gave each other a wide berth. They both tried to avoid being in close proximity to one another. But in the last few weeks, Simon seems to have lost his fear of Kazoo, and is now being quite aggressive toward her. If she's on a boing, he chases her off. Then he follows her to the next boing and chases her off of that one too. If she's sitting on the back of the couch with me, he swoops down and lunges at her. Even if she's just sitting on top of her own cage, minding her own business, he flies over and hovers in front of her for a few seconds in a menacing way. Is there anything I can do to curb this behaviour, other than letting them out of their cages separately? When I intervene and remove one bird from a confrontation, should it be the bully or the victim? Why is Simon doing this?

Okay, I'll try that. Thank you.

Yay Rosie!!!