Here's a video of her doing the noise at regular intervals. You'll notice she looks a little fluffed up, she tends to look like this while doing the noise. I've also noticed that she does less of the "chicken clucking dance" that I've described in other posts, where she puts her tail in the air and wiggles her wings, and has resorted mostly to doing this noise and a bit of head bobbing. It's like she swapped the behaviors.
She does the noise in the video while not being touched at all, and in response to your suspicions, I try and make sure I keep touching the rest of her body to a minimum, and try to pet just her head and base of her head feathers.
https://youtu.be/AsClsRVaUVUI'd like to post a video of her doing the different "hormonal clucking" noise, but she doesn't do it that often anymore.
Tonight for the first time, Michael and I are speculating that maybe this is how she asks for affection when she really wants it, because she does want to be petted during these times, and doesn't mind being held close. I comply, and pet her a lot (which for the record is strange because she likes being petted only a few times a day, and is usually not persistent about it at all).
Other new things that have happened lately is that she is becoming more independent. That is, she is making use of the ladder that has always been on her cage and using it to climb down and explore, also to come into other rooms when we go away for a few minutes. It used to be she climbed down VERY rarely and would never walk around if she couldn't see us.
As a reminder, she is about 10 years old and we've had her for 6 months. She has not been DNA'ed, but her previous owners suspect she is female, and I agreed based on her "butt/wing wiggle dance" mating behavior.
I feel like I've done a really good job in previous posts of describing what she eats, but I'll do it again.
All batches are really similar.
I chopped all this up in the food processor, and it makes 2.5 ice trays, which lasts us about two weeks and 3 days. She eats one, standard (trapezoidal, not shallow oval) ice cube sized portion in the morning, and one at night. ( I will add here that I still haven't really figured out how much I'm supposed to be feeding her, but she usually finishes her entire portion. I have yet to buy a scale, but am curious about it because she seems a tiny bit more plump than she was when we got her.)
I supplement with the occasional almond, walnut piece, pumpkin seed, pistachio, dried figs, and assorted fruit (banana, blueberry, blackberries, strawberries, papaya, mango, pomegranate, starfruit, orange, pears, apples, plums, etc), or sprinkle of sprouts (bird specific mix, and mung beans). Sometimes I'll sprinkle some Harrison's pellets (because I still have some left) in her food bowl at night or in a foraging treat). She usually gets a tiny,tiny nibble of whatever I'm eating if I happen to be at home at the time during the day.
The one I just made a couple days ago has:
kale, watercress, broccoli, red peppers, green beans, carrots, carrot tops, steamed sweet potato, wild rice & lentil mix (1/2 cup cooked total). Ground flaxseed, sesame seeds, chia seeds, hemp seeds (those last four amount to a 1/4 cup total). A couple tablespoons of a dried nettle leaf and bee pollen mix. About a 1/4 cup of cornmeal. About a 1/4 cup of steel cut oats (this time they were uncooked, sometimes I cook them). A couple tablespoons of ground milk thistle seed, because I had it lying around. 1/8 cup of millet.
Other ingredients I have added in the past: different peppers, spinach, chard, parsnips, ginger, jalapenos, butternut or acorn squash, almond meal, sprouted spelt flour, different kinds of lentils, farro, and more stuff that I can't remember.
I don't put fruit in the mix because I like to add it fresh when I have it.
Hope this helps.