Blue Headed Pionus

[sift]

Thought I'd share pictures now that Mirri (meer-ee) is home and somewhat settled in. I can't get over how sweet, how trusting, and how easily she's adapting to the new arrangements. What an amazing bird! I know that I haven't even begun to see all of her personality but what I've seen so far, I adore.

[windharper]

Wow! She is a very pretty bird!!!

Thanks for sharing!

Deb

[MandyG]

Wow, she's beautiful! Glad things are going so well!

[sift]

Thanks, guys! I'm utterly smitten. For a 10 year old bird she's taking to the family without reservation and doesn't seem to be sad about the new situation at all.

I have a quick question though... Does anyone know if pionus as a species are supposed to be clumsy birds? She's flighted right now and she flies very well (I think I'm going to leave her that way as she's never out of her cage unsupervised.. unless, of course, she's so clumsy that I start fearing for her bones!) but her landings are horrible. How can I improve this? I was thinking that if I started target training her and then taught her a flighted recall that perhaps she'd get better at landing?

[Michael]

Practice practice... The more flight tricks I've been training Kili the more confident she is with flying and the safer she can explore my place. I guess a baby will naturally try all of these things but for an older bird the extra encouragement is necessary. Without a flock to observe and learn from, we have to shape their environment and encourage them to fly.

[Suzzique]

Piouns are not clumsy. As Michael said pratice. It is true for birds just as it is for us. Do little things like if she is with you and you want her back on her cage. Don't walk her over there throw her and tell her go back. I don't mean throw like you would a baseball. More of a fling. Have her on your hand and give her a bit of a push off. This makes her fly more but by telling her go back at the same time she will learn that if you want her on her cage you say go back and she will do it. Same for if you want to pick her up. Hold your arm out and tell her come here. If you have a room that is long enough you can pratice this with 2 people. Take turns throwing her to the other person while saying come here. They are smart and will pick it up pretty quickly. This is good for her flying/landing as well.

One thing to watch for is respitory infections. Piouns are prone to them. We lost our Maxamillion to a respitory infection that we didn't catch in time. She was a sweet bird and we still miss her.

[Blythewing]

I kept a blue headed pionus and he was super clumsy.And very resilient thankfully.He did get better with time.