Green Cheek Conure ever dance or talk?

[Bella]

Hi everyone. My GC is a few months old, I've seen those cute Youtube videos of conures dancing but my Bella doesn't seem to have it in her. When does this behavior generally start if ever? All we do around here is dance but it's not rubbing off. Anyone? What about talking? When does that happen?

[ptuga72]

Hello, welcome to the forum!

My green cheek, Jake, only "danced" when he was begging as a baby. It really is just him bobbing his head like a maniac until he gets what he wants. When he did it I would say his name or sing a silly song in time with his bobs and he just picked it up. All birds are different, some do this, some don't. But with Bella being young, she may pick it up. If not, you can always do some training and make "dancing" part of her trick repertoire

Talking is a different can of worms. Green cheeks, in general, are not known for their talking abilities. Jake says "jake" "hi" "please" "treat" and "thank you". Even these are hard for anyone other than me to understand. Talking is not a guarantee with parrots, but that doesn't mean that Bella will never talk (Entranced's Scooter is quite the chatter box, I hear).

[entrancedbymyGCC]

I think those dances you see on youtube are often trained behaviors, not spontaneous ones. With a lot of patience you could probably teach your bird to dance.

Scooter has quite a desire to talk, but his "voice" isn't always clear. You kind of have to know him to hear a lot of his phrases, although now "Pretty bird", "Pretty Scoo-scoo" and "What's up" are sometimes quite clear. He is saying something these days that sounds a lot like "Danke Schöen" which I say occasionally but I wouldn't have thought such that he'd pick it up. I also think he is saying "Wake up" as well as "What's up". At first I thought I was imagining it, but then I remembered that on occasion when I sleep in, my husband will bring him into the bedroom and tell me to wake up. Finally, there is one really long phrase he says often that I can't for the life or me work out. It has the rhythm of human speech and there are at least 5 syllables and it is definitely a repeated sound I recognize, but cannot parse. There are other things he says from time to time... "Up", "That's enough", "Hello", "Pick it up" and he has two whistles he uses, a wolf whistle and a shrill short whistle used for calling for attention.

That said, now that we have a bird that talks very well, I can see that Scooter is not in the same league. He may have the same desire to talk, but he cannot make the sounds as clearly. This morning I stepped Scotty up to put him on the cagetop while I changed his pellets. When I wanted to step him up again (he usually just climbs onto the offered hand) instead of stepping up, he SAID "Step Up!" extremely clearly. I suspect he has an extensive vocabulary we've not heard much of yet.

[bmsweb]

We had 5 Baby Green Cheeks . . down to 3 now and it will be 2 tonight.

What I've learnt about these little fellas is they are all individuals with their very own unique personality. All 5 are so different from one another its truly amazing. let me assure you that if you had one the did the Dance thing it wouldn't be doing 50% of the other stuff that you love about your bird. So enjoy uniqueness of your little one.

[ptuga72]

We had 5 Baby Green Cheeks . . down to 3 now and it will be 2 tonight.

What I've learnt about these little fellas is they are all individuals with their very own unique personality. All 5 are so different from one another its truly amazing. let me assure you that if you had one the did the Dance thing it wouldn't be doing 50% of the other stuff that you love about your bird. So enjoy uniqueness of your little one.

Well said!!

[Giantmoa]

my gcc doesn't really "dance" but if I tap my finger she'll tap her beak along with me, she's getting good at keeping the beat. She also mumbles "rainbow bird" when she's in her happy hut, but that could just be me hearing what I want to hear.... she's such a character though! so much fun to watch

[CheekyandMalolo]

Well I'm glad to see that my GCC isn't the only one who doesn't seem to dance or whistle much. She only wants to cuddle. If she spots a gap in next to your neck, she pushes in sooo hard to get in as close as she can.
She doesn't whistle much at all, just does her little chirp and her squeal. She can also wave, shake hands, and is learning how to lift her wings up and turn around. She picks things up SO quickly, but getting her to learn to turn around is hard cause she has to turn away from you to do it, whereas if you face her away, then ask her to turn around, she does it great.