I’ve had my 'tiel for 8 months and he’s doing great. He’s finally growing in his adult tail feathers- he can’t be more than a year old. He’s very attached to me. We spend a lot of time together.
This week I worked a lot more than usual- I’ve actually not been working a lot lately so I was home more than usual up until this last week.
He’s been doing this thing this week where he runs and hides from me (he’s got perches & toys & stuff on top of his cage, so he will run behind one of these things until his eyes are hidden from me- then I guess he’s “hiding”). I try to get him to come to me (which he used to do immediately) but he just hides. He sings & cheeps & preens & runs around just like usual, until I approach…
What’s up with this? Anybody have this experience? Is he just a bit “detached” from me since I’ve been gone a lot lately?
My cockatiel has always displayed a similar behavior: when she’s in her cage she seems terrified of my hand. If I reach my hand in she runs/flies away and in general freaks out, even if I’m just changing her water (which I do every morning, so you’d think she’d be used to it). However if I snatch her out of the cage and plop her on my finger she immediately calms down and bends her neck down to be scratched. If she’s hanging out on top of her cage she’ll gladly perch on my finger or let me scratch her neck, and if she’s perched inside she’ll let me scratch her neck through the bars. I assume she’s just afraid of anything that “invades” her private space.
She’s 14 years old and has been like this since the day I got her (about 13 years ago), and is extremely friendly/affectionate otherwise.
Interesting. Yeah, my 'tiel will normally happily get on my finger, whether inside the cage or out- he’s not afraid of me messing around with things in/on his cage. He climbs all over me (in fact he’s heading for the keyboard right now), but the hiding thing is worrying me a little. I can go after him and force him onto my finger without too much protest when he’s hiding, but I kinda feel like he’s hiding for a reason, so I probably shouldn’t bug him.
(he’s probably playing and thinking “why isn’t this idiot engaging in my pleasant game of hide-and-seek?” but I’m not really sure what cockatiels’ capacity for games is…)