Bumpdate:
He is definitely improving his flying skills - no more banging into walls though occasionally he looks less than graceful. Whenever he lands in a different spot (the mantel, a windowsill, and once the screen on the window over the sink) I swear he looks **confused**. Then he almost immediately flies back toward his cage. It's been ages since he's bounced off of anything. One day a couple weeks ago, I saw him do two rather tight loops around his bird tree, so the control is definitely improving.
It seems like he only wants to go flyabout about every other day - seriously, one day he'll fly around a couple of times, then it'll be 2 days before he'll do it again. My husband earned some Bad Husband points the other day: we had guests coming over. When he heard them in the driveway he went out to greet them, leaving the front door wide open. Right about then, Morty decided to do one of his loops around the family room. I spotted the open door and closed it right away (and despite temptation, did NOT lock it, LOL!). Now, Morty has never made the left turn and gone down the hallway toward the front door, but one of these days he will, and carelessness like that could have awful results. Husband got Spoken To about that!! I think I'll have to remind the cleaning lady about the toilet, too; I got home yesterday and she'd been, and had left the powder room toilet seat up after cleaning it. Again, Morty has never gone into that bathroom but one day he might.
We've persisted with only giving him millet when we're offering it. By that, I mean we don't leave it lying around all the time; I'll bring a short spray to him, and he'll eat from my hands. Since I can't stay there while he gobbles the entire piece, I'll then put it on a flat spot on his tree and he can finish it up on his own. He's much more willing to approach my hand and take the millet even when it's barely sticking out beyond my fingertips, which is an impovement. I've actually gotten him to take it while it was resting *on* my fingertips a couple of times.
Big breakthrough yesterday though!! We have a chair that was previously some distance from his bird tree, that got moved fairly close to it a few days ago. I happened to sit in that chair after I got home from work yesterday... and he walked across the tree to come fairly close to me. I'm sure if I'd put my hand out, he'd have bolted, so I slipped over to where I keep the chopped up millet, went back to the chair (and he didn't bolt), put a couple of bulbs of it on my palm, and held it near where he was standing.
This meant he had to lean down to get the goodies. After a minute or two, I felt a faint scratching, and realized he'd set one foot on my hand. And a minute or so after that, *both* feet were on my hand. He startled a bit when I slowly added another bulb or two to the pile, but did not fly away. Ultimately I was even able to bring my hand away from the tree to rest it on the arm of the chair. He looked nervous but resumed eating. After a few more minutes, I slowly moved my hand back to the tree and he hopped back onto the tree.
This morning when I uncovered his cage and opened it up, I tried sitting in the chair again. Same process as yesterday, involving eventually stepping onto my hand. This time I tried moving my hand to rest on my lap. He put up with that for a few minutes before deciding to fly back on his own. I'll keep this up a couple times a day for a few more days, then try to see if he'll hop across my lap from one hand to the other.
Our housemate says "You know, now he's going to be all over you all day, pestering you for food!" to which I replied "Well, I wanted a more interactive pet!" (true. We used to have guinea pigs, whose primary occupations seemed to be eating, pooping, and quivering in fear lest someone approach them; the visiting dog was a lot more fun but also a lot more work).