Hello, I am new to this board and could really use some advice about my Senegal. Beetle is still a young bird (She's about 6) and I understand that adolescence and early adulthood are hormonal times for birds. But in about the last year she has developed a behavior that is really becoming a problem. She is utterly obsessed with the mirrors in my apartment. There are 3 that are of most interest to her: the one in my bathroom, one in my bedroom on top of my dresser, and one that I have free-standing on the floor ( a large full-length mirror.) She also goes for anything shiny including my shower head and stainless steel countertops but the mirrors are her favorite. Basically her entire waking days are spent in pursuit of getting as close to these mirrors as possible. She will dive off the cage or my shoulder (She's clipped but she flutters to the ground), and race to the area with the closest mirror. If I'm carrying her on my shoulder and we approach the bedroom or bathroom she will start frantically calling to her "friend" she knows is in there. I have erected barriers to the mirrors by trying to elevate the floors one or tape come cardboard over the bottom of them so she cant see herself: she always finds a way to climb up the barriers or break them down. She is not normally very loud but she will call loudly when she feels like the "mirror friend" is close. Just the other day I was working at my kitchen table and she dove off her cage and raced across the floor into the bathroom where she just paced around the floor, calling loudly and looking up toward the mirror above her. If she ever does get to the mirrors she simply sits in rapture and will literally not move for an hour or more. She seems to be in total bliss. This behavior in itself might be just annoying (although having her on the floor is a hazard) but in addition she can become very aggressive and bite-hard- when I try to remove her or stop her from accessing the mirrors. It doesn't happen every time but I get a serious bite probably about once a month.
Like I said I have tried to block the mirrors so she can't see them, and my measures will work for a few days/weeks before she learns to get around them. I guess I could get rid of every mirror in the house (which I don;t really want to do) but I can't so anything about the bathroom mirror as it is fixed into the wall. Unfortunately I live in a small apartment so confining her to one area of the house is a challenge. not surprisingly, the room she does best in is the computer room and the only one without any mirrors- do I really have to confine her to that small windowless space (her cage is not in there)? Is there any type of discipline I can do for her? At the moment my techniques are limited to isolating her and reprimanding her when she bites. Short of locking her in the cage I don't know how to keep her from moving about of her own free will.
Please help me I am at my wit's end! She can be such a sweet bird but this behavior is totally out of control. My lovebird had some aggressive behavior that he eventually outgrew-should I hope Beetle does the same? Do I have to cover all the mirrors in my house like a vampire? Please help me if you can.
thank you!!!
