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From: ghost@nrl-cmf.UUCP (Glenn Host)
Newsgroups: rec.birds
Subject: Re: INDOOR:  THANKS AND Gold capped-conure
Message-ID: <285@ra.nrl-cmf.UUCP>
Date: 23 May 91 17:13:15 GMT
References: <1991May22.005536.6479@casbah.acns.nwu.edu> <9663@cognos.UUCP> <1991May23.155448.21976@maverick.ksu.ksu.edu>
Reply-To: ghost@ra.UUCP (Glenn Host)
Organization: Naval Research Laboratory, Washington, DC
Lines: 41

In article <1991May23.155448.21976@maverick.ksu.ksu.edu> rdmiller@matt.ksu.ksu.edu (Ruth D Miller) writes:
>>>Anyways, he still is not playing with anything, and screams as soon as I
>>>leave his sight, which is getting to be hard to deal with.
>>
>BirdTalk had an article a couple months back about screaming birds: one
>thing it said, which I've noticed with our lovebirds, is that they scream
>while separated from eachother, as a way of keeping tabs on eachothers'
>locations.  This behavior is not confined to parrots: I understand owls
>are the same, and probably other birds.  Anyhow, the BirdTalk article
>suggested talking quietly to the bird as an indication that you are
>coming/going, thus satisfying his need to locate you.  You might say
>"hello, hello" or something when coming and "bye" when going.  The
>writer claimed success.  Good luck--conures are known to be loud!
>Ruth

We have sucessfully done this with out Cockitiels and Lovebirds.
At first they would scream whenever we left the room.

Now whenever we leave we say
"Bye, On-On" "Bye, Lucy" "Bye, Ming" "Bye, Yee" "Goodbye, little guys"
several times, especially if we are going out the door.

(We have built an indoor aviary inside our living room so they can see
us coming and going)

When we come home they are screaming when we go to the door.
After we open the door they will calm down after say hello to them.

The lovebirds have me trained to feed them sunflower seeds when I get
home from work - they will chirp and wave their heads back and forth
until I feed them.

I love having birds - to think we got into birds after our dog Ivan
found On-On and would not go home until my wife investigated
why the cockitiel would not move.

-- 
Glenn Host - Senior Systems Analyst (ghost@ra.nrl.navy.mil)
NRL Code 5800, 4555 Overlook Ave.; Washington, DC 20375   (202) 767-2046
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