Anyone know about this fast clucking?

[RavensGryf]

I've never heard another bird do this besides Raven, my DNA male BW Pionus.

I wish I could get a video, but usually when I get my phone out to video them doing anything, they stop. I'll do my best to describe. This behavior doesn't happen too often anyway, but I'm curious.

The noise is an extremely fast, fairly low volume clucking (goes on and on for the time that he's doing the behavior).

At the same time, he is sticking one foot out to the side "pushing" at Griffin. At first I thought he was telling Griffin to back off, but when he wants Griffin to go away, the behavior will be completely different from this (beaking, growling, squawking).

I've been told this is the start of a hormonal (mating) behavior. I was told that a bird will touch (the one he wants to mate with) with his foot on the back area. Griffin Is sitting side by side with Raven when he does this. Raven's foot doesn't necessarily touch the same are each time, it's more like he's pushing (with a flat palm) or tapping around Griffin's side and back. Does anyone concur that this could be 'pretend' courting behavior that Raven is doing with his little male buddy? :52:

Raven also bit me a couple times in the past couple weeks too, but I didn't think of it as hormones, because it wasn't accompanied by the flaring up, fanning, and strutting body language that male Pi's do, with a bloody vicious "hormonal" type of bite.

Maybe that type of display and viciousness comes later on farther into maturity?? I'm not looking forward to that, as male Pionus have a "reputation" like males of their close cousins Amazons.

Sound familiar to anyone?

 

[RainbowRose]

Is it like beak grinding kind of? Or is he making an actual sound like, a "chirp" and not grinding. It's hard to explain haha

Also how old are they??

My year old kakariki is molting and maturing right now and he's become more territorial and aggressive. He's just over a year old. For awhile I couldn't pick him up he would just lunge at me. Now he's still aggressive and tries to nip but steps up fine again. They go through that period where their hormones are raging.

 

[RavensGryf]

No, it's actual "clucking" along with the specific foot behavior I mentioned.

Raven is 1, but though Pionus don't mature as fast as kakariki's and smaller birds, they do tend to start "practicing" hormonal behavior really young.

 

[Scott]

I have a super tame 19 yr young male Goffin who does a variation of what you describe. The clucking emanates from within the mouth is and not produced by the beak-clicking.

Gabby climbs into an empty seed/waterbowl ring on a playpen and grasps the bottom support with his feet. He proceeds to make a soft clucking sound and rhythmically moves his head back and forth as his body remains within the confines of the top ring. On occasion he assumes this position without clucking but draws a length of plastic chain over his back!!

 

[Sterling1113]

This sounds like what Pascal does :52: I have a video of it, I can upload it and send it to you if you'd like a comparison.

He doesn't do the foot-lifting-thing though, cause he isn't really courting anything in specific, he just sits there and rocks back and forth, picking one foot up, then the next. :31:

I think we can all agree and pionus are a strange bunch... beautiful, and wonderful, but strange.

 

[Anansi]

This sounds like what Pascal does :52: I have a video of it, I can upload it and send it to you if you'd like a comparison.

He doesn't do the foot-lifting-thing though, cause he isn't really courting anything in specific, he just sits there and rocks back and forth, picking one foot up, then the next. :31:

I think we can all agree and pionus are a strange bunch... beautiful, and wonderful, but strange.

Hey, Ash! Bring on that Pascal video! I'd like to see this behavior!

 

[Sterling1113]

Here it is, Stephen [ame=http://youtu.be/zoK7vaYgLYU]Hormonal Pascal - YouTube[/ame]

 

[RavensGryf]

Raven has also (around this same time period) has begun to step INSIDE his pellet dish and trample around in there. Is that a nesting behavior for both male and female? He'll also sit for a few minutes in his Kleenex box. I wonder if male Pionus sit too? Raven was DNA'd male. No other bird I've ever had did these things. Even mature ones. I'm only used to extreme crazed biting and mating dances from males.

Oh, and Raven's clucking is faster and lower pitch and volume than Pascal in the video.

 

[Kiwibird]

Different species, but that sounds exactly like what Kiwi does when he is horny. He sticks his leg out and makes this low, repetitive clucking/grunty noise while kind of humping the air (he has nothing else to hump on :52. The behavior is different from his hormonal displays (flashing, pinning, fanning). It's a pretty offensive thing to see! I think it's what they do when they actually intend to mate, not what they do when trying to attract a mate (if that makes sense). Since he does have an immature bird around, perhaps it's more driven by him trying to assert dominance over Griffin rather than wanting to mate with Griffin (like how dogs will). I would definitely discourage/ignore it though!

 

[RavensGryf]

No humping from Raven yet lol. I've seen Twigs hump his late friend Pix since he was the dominant Budgie. Who knows, maybe like you said, Raven might be trying to finally tell the little kid who's boss? That little kid really THINKS he rules the roost with Raven haha. 1 is a bit young to be seriously hormonal, but I've heard many Pionus start acting like it around a year and a half, though they're not really ready to produce until about 3.

I'm thinking not until he's a little older, the male Pionus will do what they call the "Pionus Strut" which is said to be like an Amazon displaying and walking slowly back and forth on the perch. It is said that you do not want to touch them at this point unless you want to see blood. (your own) .

 

[Kiwibird]

Think about it Julie, when human males first get "hormonal" they don't necessarily go about expressing things the right way either. Poor raven feels things, but has no clue how to react to them. Heck, poor Kiwi wouldn't know what to do with a female if you put one in his cage while he was doing his humping thing lol.

Remember PET birds have never been exposed to what constitutes normal mating behavior as a wild or future breeder bird would be. So while they may have some kind of instinctual urges, the actions get a little off course of what they would be with an actual mate...

 

[henpecked]

IMO that's male mating behavior.