Here is another professional bird trainer's response to my enquiry on "bluffing":
"Traditionally, the idea that bluffing body language in parrots is that it is part of a young bird’s normal developmental cycle, even, according to some sources, unique to certain species. I disagree, nor would I call it bluffing at all. More often than not, hissing, lunging and other aggressive precursors to biting even in young birds absolutely results in increased and sustained aggression when the human continues to press forward with their handling. Having raised fully flighted Alexandrine parakeets myself, I can honestly say I saw no such stage in their development, and I find it a far stretch to think of this as one character trait unique to one species in the genus Psittacula.
I believe that this behavior develops from lack of sensitivity when the bird is very young and handlers can get away the neonate’s malleable disposition and lack of learning history. We can use –often gentle- force and coercion to get the bird to learn to step up on to our hands, go into its cage, and step on to a playgym, bed, countertop, or stranger’s arm to play or socialize. As it begins to develop experience that human hands and interaction don’t always bring it positive outcomes and sometimes can be scary to the bird at first, the parrot will express its desires in ways that are natural to it, either through fight or flight. If we keep pushing past the bird’s body language indicating stress, discomfort, anxiety, or fear, we will get one of two things: either the bird will learn to bite harder and faster, or in some cases, the bird eventually learns to give up under specific circumstances and acquiesce. Either way, if we roll the dice and ignore the bird’s body language, we will never get a bird that looks forward to coming to our hands or has the confidence and trust to try new objects or humans and will sooner flutter to floor with a dangerous and hurtful thump if clipped or nip.
Instead, when working with very young birds, we can avoid aggressive behavior all together by offering them choices whenever possible, arranging the environment to make the right choice more valuable than the other choices available. The bird can look forward to going back into their cage, trying new play gyms, unfamiliar rooms, strange humans, and so on, by pairing these stimuli with favorite treats, training games that include goodies and toys and mealtimes. Once the bird learns that trying new things brings about a positive emotional response, they will be more likely to try new things in the future. We can absolutely avoid this superstitious belief of the developmental “bluffing” behavior.
As far as dealing with the behavior when we see it, we can work with the bird much like we could with any bird showing aggressive behavior. Instead of pushing forward and matching aggressive behavior for aggressive behavior, thus escalating the intensity of responses for both human and bird in the situation, we should work through approximations, starting with the nearest we can get to that doesn’t evoke aggressive body language. If this means keeping the young bird in the cage to avoid any unpleasant interactions to get the bird back in the cage to maintain consistency, it will produce faster, more reliable results we rebuild some very important basics for the health and sustainability of our relationship. Trust is the destination, not an inalienable right.
Hillary Hankey
www.learningparrots.com
www.avian-behavior.org"
I have a very high opinion of Hillary Hankey as I followed her methodology (from her blog) to make friends with my parent raised ringneck. Sapphire went from being terrified of humans to running up to grab treats from me in less than a week. My avian vet thought I'd never really tame Sapphire -actually vet thought I was crazy for bringing in a completely wild ringneck for a health check and saying it was going to be my "pet".... Sapphire now steps up for the vet, but doesn't really hang around to be examined ;) The vet was pretty impressed anyway.
Hillary knows her stuff!