I tried posting this in the Behavior Byway forum yesterday but haven't found much luck yet, so I apologize for the double post but I'm hoping someone here may be able to help better understand my new Senegal roommate based on experience with their own poi.
I've just adopted my girlfriends Senegal parrot this week and despite all the research I've been doing there are a couple of behaviors I'm having trouble interpreting.
Background: Kiwi is a 20 year old male, very much overly attached/bonded to my girlfriend who for the past year has had to leave Kiwi with her parents because her job involves travel. So this week I stepped in to foster Kiwi, it's my first time caring for a bird but I'm hoping the more relaxed environment and opportunity to get at least a few hours out of the cage a day will provide an increased quality of life for Kiwi. He doesn't seem terribly crazy about me yet and is definitely not interested in any sort of physical contact with me, but a combination of shared meal times and evenings with an open cage door (mainly spend on top of his cage) while I'm a few feet away on the couch seem to be building a good foundation of trust.
Onto the question, since I was first introduced to Kiwi, he would do this sort of agitated dance, stepping back and forth and weaving his head low and to the side, and then sometimes stop, turn his back to me and lift his wings with a slight quivering motion. I interpreted this all as fear / agitation, and as a way of communicating to give him more space.
However I'm now noticing that these two behaviors are often done separately and he does both of them regardless of how close I am to him, and in fact I've found him doing both actions while he is flock calling for me when I am out of the room entirely.
I took a short video of the "wing thing" Kiwi - GIF on Imgur
He'll do that for 5-20 seconds, sometimes quite and sometimes not, I don't think eyes are pinning when he does it. When he stops sometimes he'll chat, sometimes he'll go back to snacking, or sometimes he'll start doing his back and forth dance.
I also experimented in mimicking his side to side head weaving dance, and he instantly responded by doing a little up and down dance (not regurgitation motion) and then got extra chatty. So now I'm reading that as potentially more of a generalized excitement that I'll have to read cues for whether good or bad, instead of the "get away from me dance" that I thought it was.
Has anyone here experienced the same or similar with their poi's? I'd like to have the best understanding of my new dinosaur friend as I can so that we can both make the most of this new living arrangement.
I've just adopted my girlfriends Senegal parrot this week and despite all the research I've been doing there are a couple of behaviors I'm having trouble interpreting.
Background: Kiwi is a 20 year old male, very much overly attached/bonded to my girlfriend who for the past year has had to leave Kiwi with her parents because her job involves travel. So this week I stepped in to foster Kiwi, it's my first time caring for a bird but I'm hoping the more relaxed environment and opportunity to get at least a few hours out of the cage a day will provide an increased quality of life for Kiwi. He doesn't seem terribly crazy about me yet and is definitely not interested in any sort of physical contact with me, but a combination of shared meal times and evenings with an open cage door (mainly spend on top of his cage) while I'm a few feet away on the couch seem to be building a good foundation of trust.
Onto the question, since I was first introduced to Kiwi, he would do this sort of agitated dance, stepping back and forth and weaving his head low and to the side, and then sometimes stop, turn his back to me and lift his wings with a slight quivering motion. I interpreted this all as fear / agitation, and as a way of communicating to give him more space.
However I'm now noticing that these two behaviors are often done separately and he does both of them regardless of how close I am to him, and in fact I've found him doing both actions while he is flock calling for me when I am out of the room entirely.
I took a short video of the "wing thing" Kiwi - GIF on Imgur
He'll do that for 5-20 seconds, sometimes quite and sometimes not, I don't think eyes are pinning when he does it. When he stops sometimes he'll chat, sometimes he'll go back to snacking, or sometimes he'll start doing his back and forth dance.
I also experimented in mimicking his side to side head weaving dance, and he instantly responded by doing a little up and down dance (not regurgitation motion) and then got extra chatty. So now I'm reading that as potentially more of a generalized excitement that I'll have to read cues for whether good or bad, instead of the "get away from me dance" that I thought it was.
Has anyone here experienced the same or similar with their poi's? I'd like to have the best understanding of my new dinosaur friend as I can so that we can both make the most of this new living arrangement.
