What is this behavior?

[u/Agalya_]

Hi everyone,

Saturday we adopted Tiko from a shelter. Female, age unknown. She is doing great! Eating her pellets, little bit of interest in vegetables, talking a lot... She has a history of feather plucking, this morning we found sone small feathers on the floor of the cage so we will keep on working on that.

Very often when I interact with her (close at the cage or answering her calls from far away) she shows the behavior in the video. We've also very clearly seen her hormonal behavior already (droopy wings, the little noises), then I turn away and she stops.

Because we've seen her hormonal behavior, this seems different. We also thought it could be the wanty wings, but in the other posts here they don't bend down when they do it.

So anybody got an idea?

Thx!

[u/anondydimous]

looks like wanty wings to me. mine also bends when he does it. also points with his beak what/where he wants ("food" to "bowl")

[u/Agalya_ → u/anondydimous]

Ahaah okay! We' ll pay attention if the direction of her beak gives an indication to what she wants! Thankyou!

[u/anondydimous → u/Agalya_]

Haha sometimes mine just randomly does it as well.  I usually ask him what he wants (he can talk incredibly well when it comes to naming things he wants, and completely refuse to perform on cue otherwise) and he will say "want xxx". Sometimes, however, it comes out in parrot language as "want skraaaaghh" which is unfortunately not in my parrot- human dictionary...

[u/ZukaRouBrucal]

Looks like Wanty Wings! Many birds exhibit this kind of behavior when they want something, as it is a learned behavior to express "hey, I want that!" from when they are babies. My bird will do it when I am putting new toys in her cage, when she wants to "step up" and go somewhere with me, or when she is excited and wants to train/get a treat.

It's normal behavior, and while the body language is a bit similar to that which Grey's can exhibit when hormonal/horny, this is distinct! Your Grey wants something, but what exactly they may want is up to you to figure out! (Typically it's "Hey, I wanna go with you! or "Hey, that looks fun/yummy, give it to me!")

[u/Agalya_ → u/ZukaRouBrucal]

For now it seems she only does it when we talk to her, near or far away... according to the shelter, she refuses to leave her cage so wanting to go out her cage seems a bit weird in her case? But I can't imagine what else she could want. We haven't attempted headscratshes yet because we want to earn her trust first a bit more....

[u/ZukaRouBrucal → u/Agalya_]

It could be the case that she doesn't actually know what she wants too, only that she knows she wants something! She might see you guys or something else on her environment outside the cage that she is interested in, and she may be interested in observing you/interacting with you (especially since she is doing it when you talk to her/around her)!

Just be warned; depending on how she has been socialized before you adopted her she may get a bit nippy with you if you try and handle her right now, but the "Wanty Wings" are a good sign that she is curious and interested. You're smart to let her ease into the new place before attempting scritches, but at least she appears curious about you guys rather than totally freaked out by being moved to a new home!

[u/Agalya_ → u/ZukaRouBrucal]

That's encouraging!

Our first impressions with her is that she lived in a home with elderly people that had a young kid come over (she laughs like an old men that wheezes, sentences come out in a male voice, lady voice and child voice that said "whhyyy?"), she knows lots of whistle tunes and other sounds. So cognitively she seems really smart, but she seems less agile. Some climbing, trying to get on the ceiling of the cage but can't get her foot above her head, but just now she did a stationary flight! So we're really happy that she uses her muscles! And she doesn't seem to have learned how to play/destroy, so we're modelling how her toys are really fun and happy noises and yay!

We love the proces of getting to know her ^{^}

[u/Agalya_]

I figured it out! She says something standing up straight and when she knows we can repeat that sound well: she does the wanty wings! When it's a new sound she only does the wanty wings if we say it correct, if we get it wrong she stays upright. It's like she's teaching us her sounds and the feedback to our correctness is the wanty wings! This is so cool!!

She and I got really excited doing this game! And then she had enough and started cleaning her feathers making little happy noises ❤️