Here I'm feeding wheat to Bluey, Sweety, Aspen, & Pickles & Jojo on my lawn. <br /> <br />Even after all this time - over a year - spent feeding and talking to them, they are still highly anxious and I have to be careful not to do anything sudden that could send them into a shrieking panic/ defense /attack mode. <br /> <br />Speaking each bird's name calmly, & sowing small handfuls of wheat near them, seems to be the best way to take their tension down a notch. (If any one of them sounds an alarm - they mass-panic & go instantly into head up, fight-or-flght pose, wherever the alarm comes from, even one of them down in the stream.) <br /> <br />Bluey tends to stand back when the others are all here. I have to keep an eye on him all the time, especially when I turn my back on him. If I do that when the others are also present, he'll sometimes run at me, & bring his wings up. <br /> <br />I've learned to spin round instantly when I catch him running out of the corner of my eye, angrily say "Bluey!", & glower at him. It stops him instantly & if I move towards him he'll screech & run away or jump onto the fence away from me. <br /> <br />This behaviour started when Pickles, the first pookelt, was born - or actually, probably before that - when I got too close to the nest & he flew at me. <br /> <br />But I will have to stamp on this behaviour in my own place. The trouble is, he only seems to do it when the others are around - I think it's possibly asserting his dominance - to them. And that means clapping or yelling to scare him out of this instinct also panics the others.
