The budgies beaking me is probably the most connected I have ever felt to an animal. It's participating in their social communication in a totally different way than cuddling my very domestic dog. Even when Merlin is just using his beak as an extra limb (he does this more than Percy, maybe because he is tinier)-- the first time he did that, I was so moved.
In the first few months with baby Merlin I was SO worried about teaching bad habits, but he doesn't really play-fence with me the way he did as a baby, so I'm glad we played like that at the time. And Percy nibbling me when he wants me to keep preening? I could DIE. Just... bury me now, upon this lofty peak of the human experience.
Budgies seem low stakes, in that sense. I'm not just intimidated by the
bite of larger birds, my pain tolerance is decent-- but I'd worry about reacting
correctly to a bite. Even if an angry budgie hen
really pinched and broke the skin, I just feel like there's not the same potential for intimidation there.
Annoyance, yes-- frustration (especially if that is your only bird or your first experience with a bird), absolutely. But I feel like it would be WAY easier to deal with re-training a
budgie that was biting for fun/stimulation than a larger bird, so in a sense it feels like there is more room for error?
I don't know, both of mine seem so intuitive without me doing much of anything (I'm sure being male and literally wired to be ingratiating is a big part of it). It reminds me of how quickly our poodle learned "soft mouth". We don't discourage him from a little mouthing for that reason-- he is so smart and intuitive that he uses his mouth to play and communicate without ever being too rough. I remember months ago saying that Percy would beak me in a weird way were he seemed to be trying to fit my whole fingertip into his mouth, just a bit soft chomp, and now he will do these whisper-light nibbles on my face, so I think he was just learning.
