Male budgie, about two. He grips the perch and flutters his wings hard without going anywhere, usually when I come into the room or first thing after the cover comes off. Sometimes there is head bobbing and a lot of singing with it.
He looks pleased with himself rather than distressed, but I would rather know what I am looking at. Is this exercise, showing off, or something I should be reading as a problem?
Head bobbing and singing with it makes that courtship, and the audience is you. The full routine is bobbing, song, eye pinning where the pupils flick small and large, beak tapping, quick wing flicks, and sometimes bringing food up for whoever he is performing at.
The flapping on the perch when the cover comes off is probably a different thing in the same bird: that one is exercise, which is normal and more common in budgies who do not get much flying time. Same movement, two meanings, and context is all you have to tell them apart.
He does the whole performance at a bell toy, repeatedly. Is that worth discouraging or is it harmless?
Harmless until it is obsessive. If he is courting that bell for a large part of the day, rotate the toys, cut mirror time if there is one, and shorten his light hours. Long days push hormones, and a hormonal budgie fixated on an object is the start of the behaviour problems people post about later.
Young ones also flutter while begging, with a squeaky call. Some adults keep a milder version for treats.
Adding the vet list, since the thread has correctly told you this is a happy bird. What I would want to see him for: shivering while fluffed and still, wings drooping rather than held, tail bobbing or any effort in his breathing, sleeping much more than usual and especially on the cage floor, droppings or appetite changing, falling off the perch or struggling to balance.
Fluffed and trembling together usually means cold or unwell. Warm the room gently and ring somebody rather than watching it overnight.
@wings_held_out · 4w ago
The one version of this that is not good news is worth learning now, because it looks superficially similar and means the opposite. Energetic fluttering is fine. Trembling or shivering while sitting still and fluffed up is not.
Birds cannot sweat, so a hot budgie holds the wings slightly away from the body, breathes with the beak open and sits quiet. Wings out plus open beak plus a warm room is heat, and heat stress in a bird is dangerous. Move him off a sunny windowsill and away from radiators.
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