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birdnerd
07-17-2005, 10:47 PM
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v230/sillyfeathers/freebie_portrait.jpg

Hello,

My name is Freebird. I am a 10 year old male cockatiel, and I am a beak banger.

I don't remember much of my younger life, but the first thing I clearly remember is being pulled from a box by a human who later became my own special human. I don't recall a whole lot because my feet were really hurting, but I ended up going home with my human and living in a moderate sized rodent cage for a few weeks before being allowed to move into much more spacious quarters with a lovely older hen named Lockheed.

From early on, I started craning my neck really far back and then smacking my beak on stuff: the cage, the perches, the food and water bowls, toys, my human's hand ... all kinds of stuff. Things that made noise were even better than soft things.

I sit and do this for minutes. Sometimes my human will echo what I do by tapping her fingernails on something hard, but it doesn't matter to me whether she does or not.

It's strange. I don't know why I do this. My human has mentioned having another male cockatiel she called Sijon who didn't do this, and neither of my two other cagemates, both hens, have done this. There's a much larger bird with green feathers who will sometimes click his beak on the cage bars a few times, but he doesn't do proper beak banging.

There must be something wrong with me, but I do so enjoy a good beak banging session a few times a day. That's okay, isn't it?

-- Freebird.

Bill
07-18-2005, 12:51 AM
How cute! Love the pic!

birdnerd
07-18-2005, 05:32 PM
That pic was taken by Fionna's dad. He was a phenomenal photographer. I have similar pics of Spot and Johnny. Lockheed flipped out when the camera clicked and wouldn't stay on the perch after the first time she panicked.

vmtwriter
07-19-2005, 06:19 PM
A beak banger, huh?

My sun conure, Bailey, rubs / bangs his beak along the bars of his cage when he wants sunflower seeds.

birdnerd
07-20-2005, 12:43 AM
Hi Vicki,

Wow! Bailey has much brighter feathers than mine (That photo makes me look much yellow-er than I really am. My human says it's the lighting). I posted my testimony on another bird forum and found a whole bunch of other cockatiels who are fellow beak-bangers. Now I don't feel quite so weird.

Just when we were thinking it was a strictly male thing, though, a female Jardine's parrot piped up about her beak-banging hobby. She, in fact, had been mis-identified as a male because of that. Some kind of blood test proved she was a hen. Very interesting.

I don't get sunflower seeds for snacks. I get millet sprays. Very much fun to eat. The bigger bird in the other room used to get these weird little seed nuggets until my human found out there was some nasty chemical in there that makes birds less healthy over time. Get this... the big, green bird ... he eats jalapenos! Yikes!

-- Freebird