Need help stopping landings on heads

[Harpmaker]

Corsair's favorite landing spot on a person is the top of their head. If I call her with a treat in my head she will usually land on my head and hop to my hand. If she decides to visit me she will always land on my head. When she flies to see others, she swoops down from above to land on their head-sometimes strangers.

I have tried moving her immediately to another perch, which may make her take off and fly back to my head until she gets tired and tries a different game, ducking, which causes a circle and try again, and wearing a hat, which works until she gets used to the hat.

I would keep working this way, but we had a crisis yesterday. My daughter stopped by and Corsair flew over for a head landing. Daughter complained "she only wants to poop in my hair" and started shaking her head. Corsair landed anyway, then grabbed hair to hang on. Daughter started trying to brush bird out of hair. Bird grabbed back of neck. Daughter started screaming in pain. I finally managed to get across the room to rescue bird and daughter from each other.

I was calling Corsair during most of the incident, but sometimes flighted birds do their own thing. Poor Corsair has now got this daughter added to the list of people and animals whose presence means Corsair is stuck in her cage. She doesn't need more.

To the point of this post: I need ideas on how to seriously train my bird to choose to land on other places than heads. Should I make her wait until she is called? Put even more perches out? Please help!

[Wolf]

Well, to begin with Corsair is only doing what is most natural and landing on the highest point available to her. Kiki does the same thing and the only thing that works for me is to put my hand/ are over my head for her to land on. Sometimes she will land on my arm when I do this other times she circles and will land on the shoulder on the side with my are down. Teach your friends to do the same instead of locking Corsair away as she is not misbehaving or anything like that. She is just trying to be friendly and check out the guests.
I tried using my hats but Kiki like to eat them.

[Harpmaker]

Fortunately, the other entity that gets Corsair put into protective custody is the small dog belonging to the same daughter. Corsair likes to "buzz" the dog, and whichever of the two catches the other, no good will come of it. That one IS the bird's fault.

I am still trying to convince my son that my "vicious" bird didn't "attack" my daughter's neck because of some predatory instinct that mammals are vulnerable there. It's hard because everytime I hear something like that I sit there with my mouth open.

I've been trying to figure out why Corsair didn't simply fly away. My best guess is that she needed a more stable platform to take off. She was certainly happy to come with me when I got there.

[Pajarita]

The 'earthquake' your daughter made took her by surprise and she did not know how to react to this so she just hanged on as tight as she could so, if your daughter got bit, it was her own fault and not the bird's (I am an expert on bird-boobies reactions and my replies to them because my husband is just like your daughter ).

I'll be honest with you, I've never trained a bird not to land on my head. A lot of them fly to my shoulder, a few fly to any place on my body (back, arms, even my behind ) and a couple (Pookey Timneh and Zoey Senegal) will fly straight to my head BUT Zoey will start climbing down to my shoulder as soon as she lands while Pookey will only do this for my husband and stay on my head for the ride. It doesn't bother me so I've never found the need to teach them not to (I couldn't care less about my husband's complaints when it comes to my birds and things like this and he knows it).

What I would do is always carry a high value treat in my pocket (I do NOT wear clothes without pockets) and, as soon as she perches there, call her attention by saying the name of the treat (peanut or, in the case of Isis, cheese) and holding both hands up, ask her to step up and, when she does and is on my shoulder, I would give her the treat and praise praise praise.

[Harpmaker]

Corsair does love her roasted peanuts. So much so, that she will probably circle the room landing on me, picking up a treat, and taking off again, until I run out. At least she'll get some exercise.

She used to land on whatever she found convenient, but prefers heads now.

[Pajarita]

I would too if I were a bird.