The thing with cockatoos is that they are difficult birds to read because they display both anger and excitement exactly the same way so you need to live with them and observe them for a very long time to be able to judge which is making her display: upset or joy?
The other is that they tend to get overly excited and, when they do, they nip. They don't mean to hurt you but they are like hyperactive children that just can't stop themselves from doing something they know it's not really bad per se but also not quite 100% acceptable. And this is where the 'knowing' your bird comes in: because after having them for a few years, you already know what the consequences will be of certain actions or her reactions and stop when you see that she is getting to the point of no return.
Now, there are times for interacting and there are times that something else needs to be done. They need to wake up with sunrise and get their breakfast no longer than 1 hour after it. Interaction should come after that, never before their fresh food breakfast (you can't feed them seeds, nuts or pellets, only, they need A LOT of produce of which they are usually great eaters -mine love their greens with a passion and would often go for a favorite one before anything else -like this morning when they got dandelion greens
). Then comes interaction, after that the noon rest (about 2 to 3 hours), then interaction again, and dinner when the sun is halfway down to setting with sleep after that. Cockatoos are very hormonal birds and they will give you trouble if you keep them to a human light schedule (lights on before sunrise and after sunset) because sexual hormones make them aggressive and unpredictable (can this be the reason why she reacts that way, kind of out of the blue, because she hasn't been kept at a bird schedule but at a human one and she is overly hormonal?).Now, I know that the 'don't react when bit' notion has been and still is out there but I don't believe in it. Parrots are too smart to confuse an exclamation of pain for fun 'drama' and are not sadistic so they would not inflict pain just to see the reaction. I cry out when in pain and they know it's pain and not fun. Just this morning I dropped a large rock (I put rocks in the birdroom for them to wipe and hone their beaks on) on my left big toe which made me scream in pain and you could have heard a fly breathing in the birdroom, it was so silent all of a sudden! They always get excited when I come in and start vocalizing and flying around, perching on my shoulder, hanging on my back, playing musical chairs with my head and shoulders, etc and they don't stop until I put the food out which is the last thing I do (I clean first, then serve the water and lastly, their food) but, this morning, there was absolute silence, everybody stopped what they were doing and looked at me very intently... so much so that I felt so bad for them that I started singing even though I was in a lot of pain (the toe is now swollen and purple). They are not only smart and figure things out on their own, they are excellent body language and tone of voice readers to the point that they detect our moods even when we work hard at hiding them so, if they can 'sense' a very subtle mood signal, how could they possibly misunderstand pain for fun?! It's ludicrous! My birds know not only the difference but also figure out if it's another bird's fault or something else that caused the pain - and I know because one of them consoles me (Sophie, CAG), another one defends me (Nando, Jenday) and a third one scolds it (Precie, YNA) but, today, both Sophie and Nando consoled me while Precie did not say anything and just looked at me because they knew it had not been a bird that did it.
Now, please don't take this the wrong way because I am not trying to pop your balloon or anything but I am a bit concerned because I think that you might be too young to be in charge of a cockatoo. These are large, hormonal, very powerful birds with huge, strong beaks that can do A LOT of damage and which can be quite unpredictable when not handled correctly - and this is not an easy thing to do because they tend to be very needy. Zachary, a citron and one of my cockatoos, bit his previous owner's daughter in the mouth and took a chunk of her lower lip in the process. And I can't figure out how this could have happened because he happens to be a sweet guy which is VERY afraid of people so, under normal circumstances, he would never take the initiative to approach anybody and much less attack. But he was kept in a small cage, not handled correctly, given the wrong diet, had no firm schedules or routines and was kept at a human light schedule for 17 years so I can only guess that he was so overly hormonal and despondent that he reacted very badly when she did something that must have upset him. And taking into consideration that Lily is acting a bit unpredictable, I am very concerned.
