Lily is afraid of the clicker?

[GMV]

This morning i was training lily, and i tried the clicker.
I clicked it, and 2 seconds after i gave her the seed. she took the seed, threw it and then bit my finger and it gushed blood. she was on her favorite chair, where she has succesfully done training before.
I am hurt Much more emotionally than i am physically.

[Wolf]

Doesn't really sound like the clicker to me, what else was going on at the time.

[Pajarita]

Nope, not the clicker. It was either the wrong time of the day or she simply did not feel like doing what you wanted her to do so she let you know. Or there was something going on that upset her... or, possibly, she is over the honeymoon and beginning to show her true colors. Your mother said that she had never bit any of the over 50 people she had interacted with in her life but I don't believe this to be 100% true. Not that I am calling your mother a liar, mind you! Most likely, that's what she was told by the previous owners and not knowing enough about parrots, she believed it. But there is no such thing as a parrot that never bites. Well, the very weak and sick don't but all the healthy, strong ones do at one point or another. Sometimes, it's not that they want to bite you but an accident. My Zoey loves me to pieces, allows me to do anything I want with her and I am very careful not to push any of my birds but she bit my right thumb recently and cracked the nail almost in half (hurt like the Dickens, too!). She did not mean to, she actually wanted to bite Isis but my hand got in the middle.

[GMV]

it could have been that i did not let her on top of her cage before i held her.
( i usually do ) it could be she is in a bad mood. I wish i knew what i did wrong.
do either of those sound like good reasons?

[Wolf]

It can really be difficult to pinpoint what the cause was after the fact, this is why, I carry on about learning to read your birds body language. Sometimes even that is not enough to save your hide, but it really is the best that we can do if we are going to insist on living with parrots. Most of the time there is some sort of sign, no matter how subtle it is, but on occasion there is no indication.

[GMV]

It can really be difficult to pinpoint what the cause was after the fact, this is why, I carry on about learning to read your birds body language. Sometimes even that is not enough to save your hide, but it really is the best that we can do if we are going to insist on living with parrots. Most of the time there is some sort of sign, no matter how subtle it is, but on occasion there is no indication.

Yes, i learned, but the difficult thing with cockatoos is they have the same body language for happy, scared, exited, and angry. Lily is in a bad mood today i believe.

[Wolf]

I don't believe that. I do believe that we may miss the more subtle differences in their body language that defines which emotion the bird is feeling. No bird ever makes the mistake of not knowing the difference, therefore they do show something that defines the difference, we are just not accustomed to being this observant and as a result we don't register the subtle difference.

[Pajarita]

Yep, exactly right! They always show their feelings, the problem is we don't read them well enough. Cockatoos are difficult, I grant you that, but they don't act EXACTLY the same when they are happy-excited and when they are mad-excited. At least mine don't. But I spend hours looking at them and making mental notes. For example, Freddie would pin his eyes, erect his crest and make a very slight curve with his wings by separating them from his body when he is both happy and slightly mad-excited BUT he would open his wings more fully and stand up straighter when he is 'after you' - and he would move his head differently (he would do the 'whip' when happy-excited but he would 'stab' when he is mad).

[GMV]

Very true! humans can't pick up on bird body-language as well as birds can to humans.
At the moment' i am still trying to crack lily's code for body language. i will get it one day.

[Wolf]

If you are observant enough you can learn to pick it up nearly as well. The biggest reason that birds pick it up so much better is that they use the same or nearly the same signals, by this I mean mostly the subtle positionings of the feathers. It is more difficult for us because we don't have feathers. The rest is just observation. It also helps for you to get out of your own head, you are a predator and you therefore think like a predator and to better understand their signals you need to try to view thing from the standpoint of a prey animal. I knew that we would eventually come back to this, it is really an important concept and at the same time it is really basic as well. When you misunderstood me the last time, I was really trying to give you a very useful tool in understanding your birds and why they do the things that they do.