My Parakeet is Addicted to the Mirror

User Question
First, let me begin by saying how much help and information I have gotten from your website about parakeets. I have been able to train my parakeet (HECTOR) to go on my finger -- in less than two weeks! My next door neighbor found him clinging to his screen door and asked me to take him (he has three cats!!!) I live in Florida where it is common for pet birds to escape. He was very hungry and scared but recognized a cage right away. I bought him a beautiful new cage, made him toys, and even fashioned a nice tree branch into a perch.

Here's my problem: He only stays in one corner of his cage and looks in the mirror all day! He won't come out of his cage unless I take him out and, when I do, he runs right back in. He seems healthy because he chirps quite a lot. I talk to him many times during the day and interact with him constantly. I keep him in the kitchen where I am most of the time. The only time he leaves the higher section of his perch is to eat. I am very gentle with him but he just wants to stay in that one little corner by his mirror.

I know he thinks it is another bird and I hesitate to remove the mirror because it is the only thing he pays attention to. Is there anything else I can do to get him interested in his environment and play? He doesn't talk either -- I made a tape and play it all the time. I have had him for three weeks. Thank you very much for your response.

Lisa's Answer
That's great for you to adopt the little parakeet and give it a nice, new home!

Parakeets are like very intelligent children. They are quite clever and curious, but they don't always make the wisest choices. It is up to us as the parents to not present the kids with BAD choices. If this was a child and you always put out chocolate cake along with the dinner and then let the kid choose what to eat, they'd choose the chocolate cake. It's not that they're bad. It's that they go for the tastiest solution. As a parent you need to not present the chocolate cake until the nutritious food is eaten.

So in essence the same thing is happening here. You have a new, scared bird. You want to teach it to think of you as its new flock. But then you put a mirror into its cage. Now the bird can choose between slowly learning to love the big, scary human - or just hiding out with the little feathered thing that looks just like it. But it's not even another bird that it's bonding with - it's just a flat reflection that won't chirp back or nuzzle or anything. So it's almost like torturing the poor little bird, that it will love this creature that will never respond to it.

So I highly recommend you remove the mirror. The mirror is acting as a crutch for the parakeet so it doesn't have to bond with you. It already has someone to love - and it's not really a healthy love at that. If you're usually in the kitchen, then it's not like he will be lonely. But he needs to learn that YOU are his flock, you are who he should look forward to seeing, you are who he should nuzzle and chirp to. Otherwise he'll always be just a little 'pretty thing to look at' that ignores you, instead of an interactive pet that looks forward to seeing you and loves being with you.

While we're at it, I really don't recommend playing tapes if you are actually able to be there in the room. The whole point of sounds is communication. Therefore the parakeet needs to learn that these sounds are important communication sounds and not random noise. Parakeets are very smart. If they see your mouth moving and sound coming out, they know you are trying to tell them something. Parakeets have all sorts of sounds they make naturally and they give all sorts of messages. Parakeets are able to learn the names of people and much more. So if you talk to your parakeet, he'll try to learn how to talk back to you in the same way. But if you just play random words in the background, he'll learn to tune them out as meaningless noise.

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