Barry the lovebird is very sweet, a very pretty brightly coloured hamster sized bird – but with a bite!
She does a quite scary head / eye roll type thing when she spies a finger close to her cage. However, Ian had a very good theory, which he has proved over and over again (as, indeed have I now) – and that’s the fact that she doesn’t recognize a finger as being part of us, so she sees it as a threat. However, if you poke your nose into her cage, she won’t attack, as she knows that’s us.
So we tested it, and while Ian didn’t look as relaxed as he might have done the first time he stuck his nose in her cage – it turns out that his theory is 100% correct. If a finger and nose are placed at equal distances, she will do the scary eye roll thing and try to attack the finger, but stands quite nicely and ignores the nose.
I’ve tried it too with the same effect – so although it’s counter intuitive, the thing to do with bitey birds is to get up close and personal!