Preening Mom

There's an incredible bond of trust between this bird and I. She knows exactly how hard she can 'bite' with hear beak before I say 'ow', and she rarely pushes even the tiniest bit past that point. She is busily working her beak open and shut along my thumb in the left photo here, trying unsuccessfully, but unceasingly, to pop open that "feather". You see, that's what we do with her. She's an Umbrella Cockatoo, and her head feathers, or "Umbrella", are out of reach for her. If she had bird parents, or a mate, they would preen the top of her head for her, biting gently on the sheath of each feather until the outer crust fell off and the feather popped out. Birds are constantly growing new feathers and old ones are falling out. The new feathers have to be preened in order to pop them open and she lets us do that for her (using our fingers instead of our beaks....of course).

We hand fed Gracie from the time we got her at 2 months old. She happily lets us preen her feathers, but she also happily believes it's her job to preen ours...if she could only figure out where they are. It must utterly confuse her that our feathers never pop open. We must be the ugliest birds...but she never gives up and we trust her completely when our fingers are in her beak. She's very gentle. When she starts to get a little firm, we just say 'ow' and she backs off a bit but keeps preening until we tell her she's done.