“lutino” or “ino”. It means he’s missing his melanin colors - the blacks, browns, greys, etc. Actually, it looks like he might be an albino variant. Hard to say going by just the pictures.
That means he has been hand tamed or at least hand trained, but of course he’s nervous around strangers and being in a new environment. However, the fact he was willing to sit on strange fingers at all is a good sign.
When they’re nervous or afraid they tend not to eat heartily. The “eat a couple bites and disappear” is actually normal, cautious behavior for a prey animal. Likewise, he’ll be a little suspicious of anything when you first put it in the cage. These are normal parrot instincts (he is a little parrot, you know). Give him a bit of time to check things out.
My flock has been with me nearly all their lives, trust me a great deal, but will still often avoid a new toy in their cage for a couple days before they start interacting with it.
Good call.
If possible, you could put the new cage next to his current cage for a day - that gives him a chance to look it over so it’s not a totally new and strange object.
For the first day, when he’s going to be slightly off his feed anyway, it won’t hurt.
Another good call - that way he can look you over while still feeling safe.
Parrots that are fed and content will grind their beaks - that’s actually a good thing, it helps keep it sharp. Mine will frequently eat, then settle onto their perches for a bit of beak grinding before taking a nap. So maybe that’s what he was doing. Or he was, in fact, making clicking noises. The fact he’s making noises is probably a good sign - a really nervous and upset/sacred bird may be entirely silent so as to not attract attention (instinct again - don’t want to be noticed by the scary predators).
Also a good sign.
Probably. A good 10-12 hours a day of sleeping is normal and good for parrots. He’s also still growing/developing and needs his rest as well as stimulation.
Very much debatable. I don’t use sandpaper perches, in no small part because my boys would probably destroy them and you don’t want the bird eating sandpaper. The purposes is to keep their toenails from overgrowing. Me, I get my birds nails trimmed. Mr. Broomstick and I used to do this this as a team but I find it very difficult to impossible to do on my own so I now take them to a vet for that sort of thing.
It depends.
If you have a drafty house yes, cover the cage. If you’re undecided cover the top half of the cage, leaving the bars exposed at the bottom, and Morty can decide. I’ve also mentioned this I have a box inside the cage so that gives the birds another option. I have two the prefer to sleep on a perch and one that likes to be in something (he’s more a more tropical species and gets chilly easier than the other two).
If he has “night terrors” - wakes up at night making noise and flailing around the cage - turn a light on so he can see where he is. Although parrots see better than we do in most circumstances their night/low light vision is terrible compared to ours and waking up in a strange place unable to see is, needless to say, quite upsetting. Some owners keep a nightlight near the cage to help with this, but you don’t want it bright enough to disturb their sleep.
It sounds like Morty is slowly settling in!
Mainly if he’s on the bottom of the cage, or on the big long perch. He will stay near(ish) if he’s on his long ladder ; even hops up and down the rungs nearest me. But clearly he has NO desire to be approached, even to put a hand in the cage for food or whatever. If I do, he moves as far away as he can. It was easier in the smaller cage because there were only the two perches, and not much floor room either, so I could get my hand in front of him easily and he’d step onto it (and of course immediately vacate it in utter horror!). I may have to have the cleaning lady help me figure out how to approach him / catch him w/o injuring him.