Male tiel, twelve, had him most of his life. For the last three weeks he has been singing at eleven, midnight, sometimes later. Full song, not a mumble. Cage is in the living room, cover goes on about ten.
He seems fine in the day. Eating, flying about, no change in anything I can see. But I am not sleeping and I would rather fix the cause than move him into a cupboard. What am I missing?
Worth separating singing from night frights before you go further, because the fix is the opposite way round. A night fright is a panic in the dark: thrashing, crashing into the bars, and tiels are badly prone to them. You can lose a blood feather that way.
If what you hear is actual song, carry on. If you ever hear flapping and banging, put a soft light on, talk to him until he settles, then check him over. Birds that fright do better with a dim night light than with total darkness.
Twelve year old male singing at midnight is also just a smug bird. Mine did it for years and died of old age.
Night song on its own is not a health problem, so the reassurance in this thread is fine. The things that would change my mind are in the day, not the night: fluffed up and quiet when he should be busy, tail bobbing with each breath, any noise in his breathing, droppings or appetite shifting, weight coming off.
You say he is fine in the day. Then treat this as a light and routine problem and shorten his day. Long days push hormones up, and a hormonal male sings at whatever hour he likes.
@flock_of_one · last mo. · 3 replies
Living room is the whole answer, probably. Cover on at ten does not help if the television is on until midnight and you are talking over it. He is a flock bird, you are the flock, and what he can hear he wants to join.
Light does the same job. A screen, a lamp, a streetlight through a gap in the curtain, a phone. Tiels read light as the clock, and they want somewhere in the region of ten to twelve hours of dark and quiet. A cover over a cage in a room that is still awake gives him the dark and none of the quiet.
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@bulb_in_the_hall · last mo.
There is a streetlight more or less level with the cage. Never thought of it as light because the room feels dark to me.
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@flock_of_one · last mo.
Your eyes adapted, his did not stop reading it. Hang something lined on that window before you move anything else. It is the cheapest test in the thread and it takes an evening to answer.
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