Which species of parrot has been your "terror bird"?

[Gimby]

For me it is my Hawk Head. She is Jekyll and Hyde on steroids. She has zero problem skinning you like a can opener. Once you're in her sights nothing deters her. She loves going for the face. She is very dangerous and she has ripped open a number of family members MANY times but she is my dangerous girl always and forever. I can handle her but even I get the brunt of her aggressive nature and even when she's in Micheal Myers mode I still get her out and let her have out time. So onto every body else - who's got a terror bird in their flock?

 

[orphansparrow]

Yikes! That's a lot and I think you're amazing for committing. I once knew a Hawk Head at a rescue. He was so sweet with his little "helloooo" in the mornings, but there were red DANGER signs all over his cage and no one was allowed to even change his water bowls.

I have nothing to compare because I've only had 2 Green Cheek Conures, but still, of the two Duckie is my "terror" bird. Super moody. Loves to bite but he rarely can get me anymore. He also despises my partner and wants nothing more in life than to kill when he sees him. Lol! My other Green Cheek was the most precious thing, loved everyone and everything. Never bit in the 8 years I had her.

Hawk Heads are some of the most beautiful birds to me..

 

[April]

My old Sun Conure. He flew at my mother multiple times and bit her in the face and made her bleed.

 

[Mizzely]

Quaker. He loved to dive bomb me, attacking my scalp and lips. I once had to hide under a dining table to stop him from attacking me. He also would bite my toddlers hand to make him drop his food so he could steal it. And he screamed sometimes 8 hours a day.

 

[Icey]

Geez both of my birds are angels compared to any of yours.
The only thing I can add is that when hubby winds up my macaw, I have to spank him (hubby not macaw) in front of my macaw, and say "Bad daddy" or my macaw will try and get my feet for not protecting? him.

 

[AW2023]

My conure. He isn't mean or scary, he just has literally 0% impulse control. 0%. And he's a very brave boy (i.e. terrified of literally everything) who picks "fight" over "flight" every time.
He has a nasty bite and will unleash it at literally any time, no matter how happy he is, because he's super neurotic and if a negative thought even crosses his mind he immediately lunges. He usually seems as surprised as whoever he has bitten.
It does make it easier to forgive him, because I know he genuinely doesn't mean it. He just doesn't have any modes between "nice" and "defend myself to the death via beak."
I have quite a few scars from him, as does my mom. (He actually caused MAJOR damage to her hand several years ago. He bit the knuckle joint in exactly the wrong way and now between arthritis and the bird damage, her knuckle is like 5x the size of the others.) The worst he's done to me was a few years ago when he grabbed my pointer finger and punctured really deeply. I had to keep the wound steri-stripped for like 8 weeks.

He likes to snuggle into the front of my shoulder, where he will whistle to me, trying to get me to respond. If I do whistle in response, he gets startled and will reach up and bite my chin as hard as he can. There's a lot of situations like that.
But he's a very sweet, loving boy. ...You just gotta keep away from his beak.

 

[orphansparrow]

Wow @AW2023 You're amazing for keeping your heart open to him. Some people are truly parrot people.

 

[rocky'smom]

A little budgie named Turk the terrorist.

Which parrot was your least expected addition?

Hmmmmm.....soon discovered I like my birds so much more than most people... (lord that sounds terrible) .... I keep saying I'm done....then Audrey pm'ed me about this poor guy.... and well all I can say is THANK YOU LOTS AUDREY!! Personality plus! Now I hear of a retired cockatoo breeder...

forums.avianavenue.com

He was unexpected rescue that lived outdoors for who knows how long. He was in pretty bad shape, underweight, he had parasites both sides internal and feather mites/lice. He was a devil to feed, medicate and get sprayed with feather medicine. He live with us for about 8 months, and passed away in home where he was loved whether he wanted or not.

 

[AW2023]

Wow @AW2023 You're amazing for keeping your heart open to him. Some people are truly parrot people.

Aw, you're so kind. Thank you! That means a lot

To be honest, I really struggled with accepting Peekaboo for him for a long time because of this. I loved him, but I found his sudden shifts extremely frustrating, and it was hard for me to want to be around him when there was literally no way to predict to when he'd bite since it was never premeditated/logical.
Then a few years ago my sympathetic nervous system broke down, and I got stuck in the extremes of fight/flight for a long, long time. It was a very very difficult time period where I was frustrating to others myself, because I was always scared (without any real reason to be) and lashing out. I have a good hold on my broken system now, and am able to quickly re-center myself when I start feeling wonky. But my experience has made me significantly more empathetic to him. Your body tries to keep you safe, but it doesn't always read danger correctly. I know how scary the world seems when everywhere you look your body is shouting 'danger! danger! protect yourself!', even more so when you're looking at a friend.

Thanks to the above, nowadays I am able to look past his surprise bites to see he is still the little boy underneath who just wants to be loved more than anything, just like he was when I got him as a baby (and I a child myself). The fact his brain reads him being 'happy excited' as 'panic and attack', doesn't mean he isn't happy and trying to connect; it just means he is unable to express it the 'normal' way. From his expressions, it is always abundantly clear he is not acting out of malice/ill will. Just bad nervous system wiring.
As such, when he suddenly up and bites me, and then looks at me confused as to why he just did that, I shrug it off and reiterate how much I love him.
To me, those moments are simply an opportunity to practice unconditional love.

 

[Gimby]

As parrot owners, we have the responsibility to dedicate our lives to our parrots. Whether we purchase or rescue despite how their personalities turn out to be. It is a responsibility that many owners give up on and do not work through or educate themselves on the why's and hows and that is why so many parrots end up abused and discarded. Thank goodness for legitimate parrot rescues. Every thing wants to feel accepted and every thing wants to feel love. We take care of our parrots, no matter what their personality, till the day they die. It is a parrot owners responsibility.

 

[conurehrdr]

I had a few terror birds, most of them Green Cheek Conures. Not mean spirited, but very nippy and moody. My current 'Terror Bird' is my rescue Peach Front Conure, Charlie. He's unhandleble except with a stick and is a cranky old (24 this year) fart. He can be cage aggressive and has the ability to lop of hands at the wrist with a single look. The cockatiels handle him well, though, LOL!

 

[Sparkles99]

I don’t have any such birds. Sometimes Cloud will still excessively flock call for Moss (it’s been over 2 years), but that’s it. Budgies are pretty much perfect.

 

[Dartman]

Pippen is my terror bird right now. Like everyone says GCC tend to be nippy and that's her in a nutshell. She can be very cuddly and loving and then just decide she doesn't want to go in or just because and goes on the attack biting my arm, hand, and fingers. I scritch her through the bars till she decides to bite but usually if I say gentle nicely she gets the hint and stops biting hard.
The bird that was my terror bird before her was Lurch, a used Maxi Pionus that was mad at the world for losing his old man owner and being abused by the leftover family. He gave no warning whatsoever and would just go to a quick hard bite as fast as he could, even while in the middle of a nice scritch he would just trigger. I got a lot of bites for 5 years while we worked it out with each other. eventually he realized I was trustworthy and a friend, then he was flying after me all over the house and he was very happy and loved me in his own way. He would still bite but he gave fair warnings again and didn't try as hard if I ignored them. If I did I had to be fast or pay the price.
It was worth all the bites to see him happy and a friend.

 

[Shezbug]

B&G Macaw. When he is sweet he is so sickly sweet and absolutely hilarious but when he is mad he is outright terrifying and extremely dangerous- he has not had the chance to bite anyone but me as I wont allow him out of the cage around others when he is iffy. Thankfully of late he has been my little blue and yellow happy comedian so I have been really soaking up the time with him while he is not practicing for a horror movie role.

 

[Pixiebeak]

Black palm cockatoo, they weren't pets tho. Unbelievable loud! Could break, crush a metal speculum

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[Emma&pico]

Female lovebird for me she’s an outright cow bag

 

[thunderbir]

My friend once had an Amazon parrot, it was ear piercingly loud and tried to chomp off your hand any time it could..

 

[Elizabeth]

Bender, my little gremlin GCC. Seems like a common one, although he’s an angel compared to a lot of what I read above! There’s also a limit to how much damage he can do! He’s so adorable though!

Like most parrots, his personality changed dramatically during adolescence. After that I learned that adopting an adult bird is much more predictable - they’ve kind of become who they’re going to be.

 

[Tazlima]

My quaker, 1000%. He seems to really want to be a good bird, but the only form of play he really enjoys is attacking. His toys are treated as punching bags. He's not interested in shredding or weaving, no matter what I provide. About the only way he interacts with toys besides attacking is when we play fetch, and even that, he only does when he wants a treat (he treats hair ties as currency and will bring them to me to trade for a safflower seed).

I've been working with him intensely over the past few months to reduce his cage aggression and generally teach him how to calm himself down when he gets riled up. (Hoping this can then be expanded to other situations - particularly when he gets hormonal and starts dive-bombing us humans - when he bites, he bites HARD). I'm starting to see results, but we still have a long way to go.

 

[gsflock]

For me it’s our Senegal. She is nice ish to me when we are alone, but as soon as my partner comes home from work she HATES me and wants me to die. I’ve never been upset before for a bird choosing him over me, our lovebirds prefer him too as he’s a lot more calm, and the Quakers and our Caique like me more because they love to play. But this one stings a little honestly because of how hard i’ve worked with her and how extreme her hate for me gets when he’s around. I took 2 weeks off of work to spend with her when we first brought her home because she seemed quite traumatized (we rescued her from a breeder who decided to close down and needed to get rid of their birds). I spend hours every day trying to bond with her and working on permission based training, but as soon as she sees him all of our progress flies out the window and she attacks me if I try to get close to them