What Do These Gestures Mean?

[Scotty]

Hi,

BeBe I'm going to assume has, acts with the same types of gestures as other Green Cheek Conures?

I have a small video I made on my iPhone when I was playing with one of her feathers rubbing it at her, I got her to bobb her head up and down frantically. I think it's hysterical because the beak opens at the same time, sort of like a mad person laughing, it's crazy.

Also BeBe walks around many times banging her beak on things, the floor, her cage even my fingers, banging it over and over.

What do both of these gestures mean, bobbing and banging the beak?

Sorry I don't have a video site I can upload the video to show BeBe bobbing her head, so I placed it in a zip file and attached it here. It's not a virus people, LOL.. I also added a screen shot so you can see the video and zip file is real.

Thanks...

[Weka]

Hi Scott --

I wasn't able to get the video to play on my Mac, but from your description it sounds as if your bird might be displaying some sort of territorial behavior.

I'm sure some others on the board here would have more experience in this area...



--W

[Scotty]

Hi, I shot the video on my digital camera and converted it to xvid - avi format, pretty common, so you must be missing the xvid codecs, which is common on a Mac, even Windows won't play it either.

Typically VLC is the way to go, on Apple, Windows, Linux...

http://www.videolan.org/vlc/index.html

Thanks

P.S. After posting this I found a place to just upload a video, so everyone can watch it at the link below;

http://videobam.com/ZiXAw

[Weka]

Ah! Thanks for the fix.

Once again, I'm a newbie, but I do a bit of wild bird study and this looks like it could possibly be a prelude to regurgitation/courtship. How old is BeBe?


Hope you solve the mystery,

W

[sidech]

Regurgitating. Your teaching him to regurgitate. Don't do that unless you want a problem on your hands...

[Scotty]

Regurgitating, hmm you sure about that?

Cause there have been times when I'm just plaiying with the BeBe from a distance while she is standing on her perch and she does this on her own, doing this at me.

Hmm

What about the banging the beak?

[Pajarita]

No, it's not a courtship behavior. GCCs head bobbing is part of their 'language', for what I've observed, they use it kind of like a greeting, the way we would wave a hand to say hello. Try doing it back to her when she does it to you and you will see how excited she becomes (say Hello or Good morning or whatever while you do it so she makes the connection between the human and her greeting). The beak tapping could be either to call your attention to her or just self-entertainment - they love producing noises on their own. Mine have a little plastic toy attached to the bars that has something that looks like the steering wheel of a boat (you know, with little spokes all around sticking out) and, when you make it go round and round, it makes a whirling sound and they LOVE playing with it! (to the point that the whrrrrrrrrrrrrr it makes can sometimes drive you crazy -LOL). See if you can find her a toy that makes noise or give her a bell (but make sure it's stainless steel and that the clapper is too big for her to put into her beak) and you'll see.

[rebcart]

No, Pajarita, that's definitely a regurgitating GCC. The ordinary headbobs look different, they're a more straight up and down, whereas this has a bit of a forward/back circular motion to it. Also, you can see him chewing with his beak at the end of it - they pretty much always chew immediately after trying to regurgitate, while I don't think I've ever seen chewing after a happy or angry headbob.

Tapping on surfaces can be territorial, or anger/frustration. I've seen it so many times, Shark gets annoyed that I won't take her out of the cage and starts walking, tapping on surfaces as she strides along them. A playful conure is more likely to stay in one place and chew/lick things in between more active taps, while deliberate, slower tapping motions are sort of a "this thing is mine. you've got no say in the matter! harrumph". You can test what it is pretty easily - just tap on whatever surface she's tapping with your finger too. If it's play, the bird will probably squawk and try to keep playing, while if it's a territorial tap, the bird might try a couple more emphatic taps and then follow up by lunging at your finger to bite.

[Pajarita]

I can't see the video so you might be right that the bird is regurgitating and not just head bobbing (none of my GCCs ever regurgitated for me -none of my birds do it)

[LadySaphine]

I saw the video. It's definitely something I've never seen in Peanut. Peanut has bobbed her head, sometimes with a tiny 'nod' sometimes in a sassy, sideways manner (whatchu lookin' at?) sometimes in an aggressive manner (when this happens, my brother will be in the room. She would puff up her neck feathers in a 'mane' and make her angry/I don't like you sound. And she would proceed to bob her head).

Peanut would also do the beak tapping (she would tap her beak on a perch) and I'm sure it was for attention. She would do it on the glass of our door (the bird room's door is glass, like a window pane. She would fly to it and perch on there to check out what's going on) when she wanted attention.