Off the Wall

As I type, two parrots are fighting for dominance not much more than a meter away from me. It is not a fight in the conventional sense, because both participants are careful to avoid actually touching each other, but it is none the less real for that.

The struggle erupted because Beaudin, the large, younger cock discovered the hutch on my printer stand. The color inkjet is small enough that the space between its top and the cupboard on the hutch has all the space that Beau needs to pad about on top of it. Any nanday conure likes a semi-dark place they can peer out of, and since he discovered the space a few days ago, he flies directly to it whenever he is let out of his cage.

At first, I didn’t object, because he can’t damage anything – well, except for the covers showing the ink cartridges used by the printer that I taped to the top for convenience. After all, I would far rather fetch him from on top of the inkjet that from the floor behind the couch, which used to be his favorite place to hide until I blocked access with a collection of bolsters and old towels.

What I didn’t take into account is that the hutch is half a meter from Rambunctious’ cage in the kitchen. Nor did I expect Ram, a crippled cock who used to mostly ignore the contests when his father Ning was alive and keeping Beau thoroughly psyched out, to defend his territory. He certainly has no scruples about sitting close to Beau’s cage, and even flying over to it occasionally.

Apparently, though, such privileges are not reciprocal. When Beau scampers on top of the printer, Ram rushes from his cage, puffing up and hissing, and stands on the edge of the kitchen counter, peering around the edge of the hutch and screaming at the top of his voice.

Since Ram was a handfed baby and rewarded with attention for being cute when he grew up, his screams retain a juvenile squeak that probably makes them less effective than they should be. However, his sounds manage to communicate his conviction that Beau is trespassing.

For his part, Beau screams back in kind, his tones deeper and more adult. He is obviously taken by his new refuge, and intent on annexing it to his territory.

After the initial screaming match, Beau and Ram settle in to peering around the edge of the hutch at each other, quickly retreating just before they come beak to beak, both of them fanning their wings to look bigger. Their breathing becomes so agitated that I am mildly worried about one of them having a stroke, although I suspect that neither is in any real danger.

The peering is followed by each tapping with his beak on the side of the hutch. Each is responding to the sound of the other, and the tapping is usually followed by another peer around the corner. After a few rounds of this behavior, both back off and make an elaborate show of ignoring each other, preening, or devouring bits of food. Usually, only the telltale raised neck feathers and stiff posture shows that both are on the alert – that, and the way one will sometimes wave his tale just out of reach, seeming to dare the other to try biting it.

Then one will catch sight of the other again, and the screaming and peering begins again.

In order to get some work done and let one of them sit on me, I often have to put one of the birds in his cage. Otherwise, the behavior can go on for hours.

But let me settle down to watch a DVD on the futon by the window, and Ram will sit on my chest, and Beau on the cushion behind me, not much further away than they are when Beau is on the hutch. Apparently, the futon and I are neutral territory, and the feud has a different and quieter etiquette there.

I’ve considered blocking the space that Beau has infiltrated, or possibly working on another computer on the futon. Yet for all their apparent seriousness, I get the sense that Beau and Ram enjoy their feud, perhaps as a break in routine.

If so, who am I to spoil their fun? Maybe I’ll just invest in a pair of ear plugs instead.

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I’ve lived with Nanday conures – a kind of small, South American parrot – most of my adult life. I knew they were intensely social birds, craving flock and constantly re-negotiating their status. But I never realized just how much the composition of the flock could affect personality until the last few months of watching my bird Beaudin.

Beaudin was a rescued bird we adopted six years ago in a process that could hardly have been more rigorous if we had been adopting a human child. He was about thirteen at the time, and may have lost a mate. When Trish and I brought him home, he had been neglected for several years, kept in a half-dark laundry room and mostly ignored.

We set up Beau’s cage across the room from Ningauble and Sophie‘s. We soon noticed that Ning thoroughly dominated him. Ning’s domination could have been because he was the oldest bird, and had been resident in the living room the longest. Possibly, too, Ning dominated because he was the only cock with a mate. But whatever the reason, Ning had Beau under control from the start.

A large and soon healthy bird, Beau would challenge Ning at every opportunity, answering his calls defiantly with his own. If Ning hopped down on the floor to explore, Beau would dive-bomb him if he crossed the invisible border between their territories. While he wouldn’t come down on the floor himself, he would pace back and forth, squawking furiously if Ning disappeared under the couch or behind it, obviously expecting an ambush at any moment.

Yet, for all Beau’s young machismo, Ning always had the psychological edge. He would sit just centimeters over the border, apparently calmly preening, but actually alert for any attack. When Ning discovered he could use the table to infiltrate to a position directly under Beau’s cage, where the angle was too steep for Beau to dive-bomb, he took full advantage of the fact, lingering there as long as I would let him.

I am ashamed to admit now that I laughed at Beau. He seemed so full of expectations of becoming dominant and so puzzled at the hold Ning had over him that I had to laugh. Partly, my reaction was a pleasure at seeing that age and the death of his mate hadn’t slowed Ning down any, but mostly I laughed because Beau’s reaction seemed so exaggerated.

Then six months ago Ning died, and Beau became the dominant cock at last. Rambunctious, my other surviving parrot, is crippled, so he has never tried to dominate, and suddenly Beau had what he had sought by default.

For several months, he continued to look around cautiously, peering at the places where Ning had liked to hang out as if to be sure he wasn’t about to be attacked. But, almost immediately, Beau became more confident, exploring further from his cage. Now, he spends more time with me at the computer, flying to and from my shoulder as he pleases, hardly ever checking for where Ning might lurk.

A nervous bird, Beau didn’t calm down completely. But he became a quieter bird. His expressions of surprise or peevishness still sound like a cockatiel’s, but they are usually quieter, and last for a shorter time. Where he had once preened with Trish and I only occasionally, and never for long, he now preens me and presents himself for a neck and wing scratch several times a day, and coos contentedly when I talk to him.. Only occasionally, when the shadow of another bird crosses the window or when I move too quickly does he act like he used to. For the most part, he is a much more confident bird, although I suspect he will always be high-strung.

As for relationships with Ram, Beau is benevolent, as dictators go. He will concede my shoulder to Ram for brief periods, and wait if I feed Ram a piece of peach or some fruit juice first. But he expects his share of both attention, and will fly over to claim it, driving Ram away in his eagerness – although, mindful of Ning’s treatment of Beau, I intervene to keep them from fighting, because, after his initial retreat, Ram has a tendency to lunge and bluff, and I am not sure if either will back down.

Beau’s transformation has convinced me that we often under-estimate just how social parrots really are. To an extent, being plunged into a small flock might have been just what Beau needed to help him recover after years of isolation. There is, after all, a theory, that intelligence develops in social species in order to think about relationships. But, because he was the newcomer and therefore low-status, past a certain point, being in a flock seems to have slowed his recovery from neglect beyond a certain point.

Perhaps the effect of having other nandays about might have been different in a larger space, or with different birds. I don’t know. But I do know that, if another parrot ever comes to live in the townhouse, I will think more about how the personalities involved might interact.

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