So I'm pretty sure it's not news to almost every bird owner here that birds love to shred stuff, especially cardboard. Lada my ekkie in particular LOVES to shred the small boxes I give her at mail time (Amazon boxes and such). I stopped giving her boxes she could fit in as this was obviously encouraging nesting behavior. She would cut a hole and then hide inside. Now with the small boxes, she just shreds them to pieces. What I am curious about is the purpose of this shredding? For further context, she will break a complete box entirely down to confetti and she seems to get a little agitated when I come behind her to clean out the cage. If she is sleeping on her top perch, and I reach in to the cage she doesn't care, but if I try to clean out her handy work, she will quickly climb down to the bottom. She has not bitten me during this behavior as I never give her the opportunity. I simply give her some time to go do something else before I resume cleaning or I just let the cardboard fall out the bottom and sweep it up. I cant say for sure if she is being defensive over it, but knowing her history defending boxes she can fit in I assume its the same or similar behavior. I am fairly sure this is simply nesting type behavior, ie she is making bedding and or she associates the shredding of cardboard with the hollowing out of nest space as she would in the wild. Therefore, she is just treating this material on the bottom of her cage as a sudo nest space. She never hangs out down there though which is why I partially question this conclusion. She just to shreds and then climbs back up to the top to perch or play with toys or munch, etc. What are your thoughts? This seems pretty clearly like nesting related behavior (which I should be careful encouraging), but I wanted to get everyone's opinion. Thanks!