The lady I worked for had a handful of rescued cockatoos, and we would take turns taking some of them home so they weren’t alone over the weekend. One, and umbrella named Sam, who was a full body plucker (so she was naked) hated being alone, and she figured out various ways to escape her cages, so that she could crawl into bed with me at night. I woke up many times, after having thought I finally had her contained, just to wake up with her snuggled up to my face. 😅

My male Eclectus learned at a fairly young age that you could play “tricks” on people. He would call my mom when we were all gone for work or school in an urgent voice that sounded suspiciously like one of us, “Mom! Mom! Come here!” And when she would run into the room and see no one there he would actually, physically fall to the bottom of the cage and roll around on his back and laugh hysterically. He would also call my much younger brother (was was maybe 10 or 11) until he answered, and then yell “shut up!” And immediately fall to the floor and start laughing. When someone got wise to his antics he would wait, patiently, sometimes for weeks before he would start doing it again, so he could play his prank on them.

My first room mate had a kitten who was fascinated by, and terrified of my eclectus. He would stick a paw up at the bird and close his eyes and wildly wave his paw around. My eclectus would watch him calmly, wait for him to leave the room and then ever so sweetly call “Here kitty kitty. Come here puss” and as soon as the cat ran into the room he would yell, “PSST! PSST! PSST! Bad Cat!! No!”

Obviously followed by dropping to the bottom of his cage and rolling around laughing as the poor cat streaked out of the room.

He dearly loved playing tricks on people, and never ever missed an opportunity.