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Hello Immie,

My first guess is he perceives your hand in his cage as a threat. His cage is his security, domain, and to him, is a sacred place. Lots of birds, including one of my own, hates me to stick my hand in the cage, but he does not panic or such, just glares at me and tries to get out of the way.

What was the position of his crest when this was going on? Up, partialy up, all the way down, or somewhere in between? Cockatiels have a definite set(s) of body language, and you can tell a lot about their current mental state by observing some subtle, and not so subtle things like body position, tail, head shaking, etc. Sometimes, they will run back and forth at the bottom of the cage, which in my case, means they want, or are begging for attention and want me to take them. Other times, they are agitated, and want to be left alone. Google for cockatiel behavior or body language, and I think you'll find quite a few pages. Here's one of the good ones

http://www.cockatielcottage.net/questions4.html

One last thing, as bird hearing is very sensitive, it could be the music is too loud. This sometimes will trigger behavior as you mention, and the bird is wanting to get away from the loud noise.

Sam

My bird actually seems to like it when I put my hands in his cage, and he still does not like hands much either. He likes it when I move things around, or clean his cage, and especially when I put a food dish back in with new food! He will hop right on it before I can even get back to where it belongs! He just seems very interested in watching what's going on. It's almost like he can tell I am busy doing something in his cage and am not going to bother him. I love how he leans over and looks down to see what's going on when I empty out the bottom of his cage!

Yep.. those are good, and pretty well sums up what a lot of web pages have on them. Good link......

In my very limited experience with birds - I have one since Jan., the more you work with the bird the faster it will get used to you and bond with you.

I went against most of the rules when bringing home a new bird.

1: her wings were already clipped. If your birds aren't clipped do it - it will make taming much easier and quicker.

2: When I got home with her, I handed her to my husband and said " here honey, hold the bird" , then I set up the cage with her watching.

3: A friend came over about an hour later and I handed her the bird.

4: We had her out of the cage with us - holding her and talking to her for about 3 hours.

5: We took her out of the cage everyday so she learned to step up real fast, and she learned we are a family and that includes her.


Even now after all this time we let everyone who comes in the house hold her - telephone repairman, cable man - everyone. We say " here - hold the bird" and they do!

In a nut shell, clip the wings and hold the bird. Don't worry about fliying, the feathers grow back, and you'll have a bond with him a lot sooner.

good luck

My Tiki paces back and forthe excitedly to say, "Hey, Mom, get me out and snuggle!" However, I have to wait till he gets in ONE particular space on his perch to "step up"; otherwise, he'll fly back and forth fratically, even breaking blood feathers. Loki, my new bird, has finally discovered it's nice to be out of the cage too; he is now mimicing Tiki's behavior, though they're in different cages. (Here I was wanting Tiki to mimic Loki's whistles...argh!)