winking?!

[yazzmin]

I'm currently trying to teach my irn to wink. this probably sounds odd but ever since I was a little kid I've noticed that if you copy a bird when they blink it doesn't take long for them to work out what's going on and start to mimic you back.

at the moment if I close both eyes (well.. almost close :b) he will close his too but leave one eye slightly open to watch lol. I've been just doing it every time I have him out or walk past his cage and he seems to respond most times. I'm just trying to think of a funny cue to use because I think it would be a pretty cute trick and I haven't seen anyone else do it. has anyone done anything similar with their birds?

 

[LoryLover]

I've tried it with my chattering lory. She does mimic me and it's really cute. I also will open my mouth and then shut it. And then ask her "can you do that?" And she does it. There's no end to the cuteness of these little birdies. My lory is a fun loving parrot, and I love to have fun too - so we're a great pair, lol!

 

[yazzmin]

that sounds adorable

 

[NWQuakers]

I taught Mark, my 1st quaker, to wink by imitation and asking 'can you wink?' each time I did it.

When she did it on her own I would say 'nice wink' in a very exaggerated voice. I think it was just fun for her to interact with me in a different and positive way.

 

[LoryLover]

I think it was just fun for her to interact with me in a different and positive way.

Yeah, I agree. My chattering can be in her cage at the other side of the room and if I just look at her thru the mirror on the opposite side of the room, she notices I'm looking at her and will say Hi. This shows how closely the parrot watches you. Or if she's with me and I just smile at her, she responds by saying "you're so sweet"... so she knows that a smile is a form of communicating.

 

[NWQuakers]

Or if she's with me and I just smile at her, she responds by saying "you're so sweet"... so she knows that a smile is a form of communicating.

They sure are observant, and clever!
Mark would always chuckle when we smiled, assuming smiles turn to laughs. What a nice outlook she had on life...

 

[LoryLover]

Mark would always chuckle when we smiled, assuming smiles turn to laughs. What a nice outlook she had on life...

That's cute! She certainly did have a great outlook on life. An unrelated question... who named her Mark?

 

[NWQuakers]

That's cute! She certainly did have a great outlook on life. An unrelated question... who named her Mark?

That would be me
When I first brought her home, she was about a year old and not very socialized. She made some birdy noises that sounded like Mark, so that's what I called her. A few years later I had her DNA tested and found out he was a she.

When I tried saying good girl instead of boy, she got mad, so I got in the habit of just calling her a him over the years.

 

[LoryLover]

She was quite a character, huh! I bet you had lots of fun with her.

I’m familiar with a male bird turning out to be a girl bird, haha. When we got our chattering at 6wks old, I wanted a male, and the breeder told us it was a male. For a while we just called him Baby, then we added some nicknames, one being Sweet Pea. When “he” was 9 yrs old, “he” laid an egg! I groaned inside, thinking “this is why I wanted a male.” We’d been saying things like “good boy”… It took us about 6 weeks to adjust to calling him a “her”. And she still says “good boy”… I correct her and say “no you’re a girl – good girl”… she’s 15 yrs old now and refuses to say “girl”, hee hee. But my husband claims that he finally knows why the lory chatters so much, because it’s a girl, lol. (of course, the species is called Chattering Lory, but my husband had to attach another reason, lol)