We have an extremely unusual IRN who craves cuddles all the time. He will literally take cuddles as a reward instead of treats! When we have to go away each summer, we leave him and our other birds in the care of a fellow who also has birds. Habibi (our
) always does really well, especially since this friend of ours keeps his birds "free range" the way we do, and the birds are never kept in their cages. Unfortunately Habibi has not accepted our friend enough to be open to cuddling, which means when we come back he is in serious withdrawal (luckily our friend's wife can cuddle him, or I think Habibi would explode).
When we return from holiday, Habibi screams at us as we approach the house. He then turns himself away to literally give us the cold shoulder when we approach. He shrieks as loud as possible, and does not stop until my husband (his favourite person) cuddles him. Habibi is usually extra attention hungry for the following two weeks, and requires of a lot of one-on-one time.
I do not know about other IRN's, but ours requires a LOT of time. In the morning before work we have to wake up early to accommodate cuddle time. This morning Habibi was particularly clingy and decided to shower with my husband.
It actually made my morning
The point is! Our bird is kind of like a toddler. He requires a ton of time.
This kind of makes "Kiwi" (our Alexandrine
) seem incredibly aloof. She is probably just normal. In the afternoons when we come home, she will often call me over. Sometimes it is to catch a ride somewhere, sometimes it is for food, and sometimes she just likes to poof up and sit on my arm. Every other day she will perch on my head and stay there while I do chores like sweeping up the mess they made. So while I would say the after bird in this group does not need a ridiculous amount of time, I think you need to be within reach and definitely within view at least 4 hours a day.
Just my thoughts