my cockatiel thinks he is a woodpecker

[guybo]

It started last week. Sitting around the house and we hear what sounds like a woodpecker on plastic. It turns out to be Hades pecking on his food dish! He's pecking on his perch, on his food dish and his cage. In the cage or out he's pecking lately. It's not constant, it's just like singing or squawking.... sometimes he just starts woodpeckering.

What does this mean?

[captwest]

I have males that sometimes do that, usually they're the alpha males, not real common practice but i have noticed it before, especially this time of year,(start of breeding season).I've not heard of this before and i call it "druming" , my birds like to do it on a perch.

[Jenny]

I've read that this behavior is typical of males, & is a form of them asserting themselves - that it could mean "this is mine" or "don't take me off this/away from this spot". Aaron does it a lot, & it seems to mostly be in a "this is mine" scenario. I always wonder what pounding your beak on something hard like that must feel like or sound like in your head...

[zazanomore]

I have males that sometimes do that, usually they're the alpha males, not real common practice but i have noticed it before, especially this time of year,(start of breeding season).I've not heard of this before and i call it "druming" , my birds like to do it on a perch.

So this is the breeding season for Australian parrots? Hopefully Einstein doesn't get too moody...

[captwest]

Yeah I'm not up on Aus. birds breeding season. The tiels seem to breed all year if given a nestbox, however i keep mine in a flock in alarge cage with no boxes, and there's a lot of hanky panky going on this time of year , at least here , eastern US

[entrancedbymyGCC]

So this is the breeding season for Australian parrots? Hopefully Einstein doesn't get too moody...

Methinks it would flip by 6 months in the northern hemisphere. Length of day tends to be a big indicator for season among animals. When my horse came from New Zealand, he shedded a winter coat and then grew another one, finally syncing up with the northern seasons.

[Shani]

Yeah - cockatiels tend to go by the length of the day, however most breeders down here (good ones anyway) tend to remove the nestboxes over the summer months (Jan and Feb in particular) just due to the retarded heat we can get. Last summer we had a week in a row (or was it more?) of 45C+ days where I am (110F+ for you guys using Fahrenheit).

Captwest is right, though in Aus it seems that they really tend to slow down around April/May, and start up breeding again in late August/early September.

[guybo]

Hades has gotten very aggressive the past few days. Luckily his bite is more of a peck and doesn't hurt but it's hard to get him out of the cage. Is this because of breeding season and related to the woodpeckering?

[captwest]

Sounds as if it could be related Guybo, what part of the world are you?how old is Hades?

[guybo]

Hades is under 1 year- about 10 months. Right now, here in Florida (not too far from you, Captwest) , it's gotten cold the past week. I've been reading on here (your posts included, Captwest) that a change in seasons can affect a bird. It has gotten very cold very quickly here and it's gotten very dry too.