Some of what might belong here was already discussed on previous pages. Parrots have a behavior and attitude that the world exists for them and everything in it is there for them. If you're lucky, like I am, most of the time the favorite thing in your parrot's world will be you. Even though this brings a great amount of pleasure to me, you want to be sure that your parrot can entertain himself when he's alone.
Helping your companion parrot to develop independence and independent play is one of the best things you can do for him and you. If your parrot depends on you for all his entertainment, then you may be well on your way to developing a screamer, feather plucker, or self mutilator. None of these were in your dreams for the perfect companion parrot. I don't want to imagine how much a constantly screaming parrot can affect a home, but this is one of the main causes for parrots to be sold or brought to a bird rescue. Having your beautifully feathered parrot pull out his feathers or rip holes in his flesh is not a pretty sight. These are not easily changed behaviors, so it's much easier to prevent them from occurring than to stop them after they begin. I've only seen one picture of a Senegal Parrot who picked his feathers and I haven't heard of any other cases of this behavior in Senegals.
Independent play is very important for your parrot.
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Don't confuse normal preening with feather plucking. Preening is the process a bird goes through to clean and re-align the feathers of his plumage. He does this by pulling his feathers through his beak. During preening, it is common for feathers to come out, but this is normal. Though at times, preening may cause a rough look where a feather was removed, it does not produce exposed skin or wounds. Pepper spends a lot of his time preening, easily over an hour each day. Preening sessions may be for a few seconds, a couple of minutes, or nearly 30-minutes in length. If I am holding Pepper during one of his longer preening sessions, when he is done I'll be covered with small white (sometimes dark) pieces of feather sheath (the covering over a new feather) and numerous feathers of varying type and size. Most of the feathers will be down feathers, followed by body or contour feathers, with an occasional primary or secondary wing feather or tail feather. Because of his hard style of play, Pepper is much more likely to damage his tail than wing feathers by banging into other toys or parts of his cage or play gym. For this reason, more tail feathers are removed during preening and his tail often has a lack of symmetry (side-to-side balance) due to broken feathers that have been removed
Pepper spends hours preening his feathers.
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If you see a feather that is oddly sticking out of your bird, don't try to remove it. During preening, your bird may correctly re-align or remove this feather. The only time you should remove a feather is if it is a bleeding blood feather. This is a potential threat to your bird's life and you should be aware of how to properly remove this feather and safely stop the bleeding.
Height is a determining factor in how your bird will interact with you. If the bird is physically higher than you, it is in a place of dominance over you. Overall, Pepper is a very well behaved bird. Height dominance causes a problem at times. If I am sitting down and attempt to put Pepper on his play gym, which is about shoulder height on me when I'm sitting, he often refuses to leave my hand. He might turn away, climb onto my arm, bend his body so that it is between my hand and his play gym, or bite my fingers. If I stand up and say "off" he almost always steps onto his play gym immediately. If Pepper is playing on my hand, he will often be held about eye-level with me. If he gets a little rambunctious, all I need to do is lower my hand to about mid-chest high on me and he calms down quickly.
There is a lot of debate over allowing a parrot to be on your shoulder. This is due to the height dominance issue. There have been stories of large birds doing serious damage to their owners' ears, eyes, nose, mouth and other areas of the face and neck when on their shoulder. Many others say that they regularly allow their parrots onto their shoulder with no problem. I do allow Pepper onto my shoulder, but at my discretion when I place him there. He is not allowed to climb there whenever he wants. Even when I place him on my shoulder, height dominance appears once in a while. If I try to get him onto my finger, he will sometimes try to climb down or across my back. So that this does not become a reinforced game, I stop it quickly. The easiest way I've found to stop this is to walk into a room Pepper isn't comfortable in or go near something he doesn't like. He usually immediately goes back to my shoulder and onto my offered hand. This limits his excitement and play so that this behavior isn't reinforced. Yes, even with all this I have received a few hard (painful) bites to the nose or lips. This was not an attack by Pepper, but an attempt to climb across me. His firm bite, normally used to support himself, is great when on toys or swings, but painful when applied to a nose or lips. When he's done this I try not to react to reinforce the behavior, but immediately place him on his play gym and ignore him for a few minutes.
I've spoken of reinforcement a few times. Reinforcement is when the bird receives a reward or encouragement. Food is often thought of as the most common reward. Something as simple as a reaction (a laugh, giggle, an excitedly spoken "ouch"), a spoken positive word, or some one-on-one time are rewards to a parrot. If your parrot bites you and you respond with an "ouch" the bird may take this as positive reinforcement. So the goal is to respond to the behaviors you want, but not to the behaviors you don't want. It is hard to always do this. Previously I spoke of feather plucking. Well if a bird begins plucking its feathers and the owner responds by picking the bird up and cuddling with it (at least if it's a bird that likes to cuddle), the parrot may see this as positive reinforcement and feather pluck more. Even raising your voice and yelling at a parrot for its negative behaviors may be seen as a positive response by your parrot and reinforce a behavior to continue. We all need a degree in parrot psychology or at least a lot of common sense about how our behaviors are received by our parrots.
The "Skirt Dance" (as it is commonly called) is something you don't want to encourage or reinforce. This is a courtship dance. When Pepper does this he bends over so his body is lower than usual. He holds his wings slightly away from his body and lowers them so that they're dragging on the ground. He often will pump his head in and out trying to regurgitate food. His feet will get much hotter than usual. Finally, he makes a very low, murmuring sound that is different than any other sound he makes. When Pepper does this I try to distract him by placing him back on his play gym and offering him a foot toy to play with.
