# Ah yes, the classic “mixed signal” budgie behavior… that’s what everyone’s been talking about.



## dayclovers (Oct 22, 2021)

‼ This thread is 90% me rambling about nothing, sorry in advance

we’re only about a week in at this point, so I’m not taking any of these behaviors too personally. I just find them a little confusing.
(Also, I chose names! The boy is Kiki, short for Kikimora -in direct reference to The Witcher: Wild Hunt- and the girl is Tabei, after the first woman to climb Everest… in case ya missed that in my previous posts)
SO
I’ve been spending at least a few hours a day in the bird room since getting these two puffballs. I’m slowly getting to know them, but I’m still learning how to _read_ them. They’ll eat in front of me, sleep, etc, which I’m assuming are signs that they’re beginning to be ok with my general presence 😌
Kiki is my “cool as a cucumber” fella. He’s very engaged at all times and loves to look at me and give me little head tilts and lots of singing. His hand-shyness is disappearing much faster than Tabei’s, who still bounces around her cage like a ping pong ball every time I change her water. Kiki just scoots over on whatever he’s sitting on, and doesn’t really seem too alarmed. Occasionally he’ll have a little fright, like when I’m moving objects in and out of his cage, but when it’s just my hand he’s pretty passive. I think he’s going to be the one who will be tamed first, just because he seems much more amiable to me than his sister does. He does a brief little feather puff and tail shake anytime I come in the room, and will sometimes start vocalizing a little. He seems excited, but I could be reading that wrong. Another thing is, the other night, he was giving me head bobs. I didn’t want to do them back in case it was like, a “be my mate” thing. I saw a TikTok video of what I believe was a tiel doing a head bob to a water bottle with a top that bobbed up and down, and everyone in the comments was saying not to let him do that because it was a mating thing. So that got me worried about copying my budgies and vice versa.
Now, Tabei… I’m not sure how I can help this little baby. Obviously, at just a week in, I don’t expect her to be any better than the day I brought her home (sometimes I have to remind myself that it isn’t fair of me to compare her progress to Kiki’s.) She seems to be pretty high strung. Can birds have anxiety? And that meme song, Face Off by The Rock and Tech N9ne? That’s the energy she gives off at pretty much any point in the day. This girl acts like she’s training to escape a prison. She’ll climb, bounce, hang upside down, take a 5-minute break to eat so fast that half of her food ends up on the floor of her cage, rinse and repeat. It’s entertaining, definitely, but I have concerns that she’s not happy or has something going on neurologically that isn’t being addressed. She doesn’t really sing the way that Kiki does, only gives some little “hey, I’m still here! We’re ok!” chirps once in a while. She also did this thing the other day where she was flapping her wings and “ack ack”-ing. Nothing was going on, so I looked it up and saw that some birds get really into stretching and will vocalize when they do it.
*Anyway, TLDR*; I love my birds and want to talk about them always, and I would also appreciate a list of budgie behaviors that I could educate myself on.


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## dayclovers (Oct 22, 2021)

dayclovers said:


> ‼ This thread is 90% me rambling about nothing, sorry in advance
> 
> we’re only about a week in at this point, so I’m not taking any of these behaviors too personally. I just find them a little confusing.
> (Also, I chose names! The boy is Kiki, short for Kikimora -in direct reference to The Witcher: Wild Hunt- and the girl is Tabei, after the first woman to climb Everest… in case ya missed that in my previous posts)
> ...


Also, I was thinking of getting a little nursery monitor to keep in my room overnight since the birds are on the other side of the house and I want to know if something is wrong or if they have a night fright. I will also get woken up when they wake up if they decide to make noise. Good idea or too far? 😂


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## FaeryBee (May 9, 2011)

*I can't really provide you with a "list" of budgie behaviors because budgies each have their own unique personality including likes, dislikes and behavioral patterns.
You have one chill boy and one active girl -- both are perfectly "normal". Your little girl sounds quite happy to me!
It will be fun because between the two of them, you'll have the gamut of behaviors to watch , enjoy and become accustomed to.

If you want a nursery monitor, by all means get one. No one can tell you "its too much" if it makes you feel more comfortable and confident.
I'm sure you have a night light in their room to help prevent night frights. Sometimes (not often) they may occur anyway.
My budgies are in a room upstairs and my bedroom is downstairs. 
I woke up one night to hear them all crashing about in their cages even though the cages were covered as normal and the night light was on. 
I don't know what set them off but all of them were frantic.
I went up, turned on the lights, uncovered the cages and talked to them for a bit until they had calmed down reasonably well.
That was rambling! LOL. Anyway, if my room was at the other end of the house, I would not have heard them so I can understand your thoughts about a nursery monitor.
💜 💜*


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