Meet Clover!
So for you to really understand the dynamic between my beautiful bird and I, it's good to have a little bit of background on our histories; His with humans, and mine with birds.
Clover is a green Quaker parrot who is around 2 years old; That's what I'm told. I don't know exactly how old, because I didn't get him from a breeder. I got him from a self-fashioned shelter, in a family home, that takes in a lot of rescue birds, both from the wild and from bad homes, and Clover is one of the latter. The poor little guy was abused or neglected in some way, and so his experiences with humans have not been the best; I don't know the details of his situation, only that he's had a hard time. Whilst the rescue shelter presumably treated him well and mellowed his distrust somewhat, he's still a fair way from a cuddly pet. He will let you get as close as you like, pet him, kiss him on the head. He will take food from you gladly. He doesn't bite or growl, but he simply will not be held. Any attempts to pick him up will immediately have him fly across the room. He also tends to be extremely quiet; he supposedly has a few words under his belt, as well as the standard parrot chatter and squawking, but he seems too nervous to vocalise for the most part. That's all understandable and I'm willing to let him go largely at his own pace until he's more comfortable. In the mean time, during the day, he all but has the whole house to himself. I leave the cage door open, and my room open, so he's entirely free to explore and roam at his own will. But he doesn't. He'll climb on top of his cage and down the sides, but refuses to leave contact with the metal bars for any reason. So he's spent 3 days sitting on top of the cage, slowly gaining the confidence to chatter a little more and vocalise, eating more and growing less nervous. I'm thinking of putting a treat or two on the far side of the table to tempt him to leave his cage. Progress is being made, it's just a matter of patience.
My personal experience with birds is relatively extensive. My family always had a lot of pets growing up, and over the last 4-5 years that I was at home, their focus moved to birds. Every member of my immediate family owned at least one bird, myself included, and so I'm very much familiar with the care and training of birds. My first bird, Piccolo, was a bit of an accident. I was going through a particularly hard time in life and wasn't remotely interested in having a pet, and when my sister brought home this injured musk lorikeet from school, missing feathers, covered in ants and lice and unable to walk, I did my best to distance myself from it, since it was likely just going to die anyway. I get attached fast, and the last thing I needed at that time was more loss in my life. Naturally, the bird ended up living in my room, entirely for space purposes - My mother made sure it was cleaned and taken care of. It was very skittish and would squawk endlessless, day and night, and despite my annoyance by it, I also felt pity. Eventually, days down the line as it looked like it was recovering somewhat, I tried to simply hush the screeching bird with a gentle 'shh', and to my surprise it listened immediately. From that moment on, as if by magic, that bird was completely tame for me. It would step up, it would fly to me, come to me for food, talk to me, sit on my shoulder for hours at a time. To this day I don't know why it happened, but this completely wild, skittish bird just turned tame and affectionate in a matter of minutes.
So much for not getting attached.
Unfortunately Piccolo died a couple years later of a stroke, but in a lot of ways she made me a better person and helped me through some times I don't know how I would have managed without her.
So whilst I know in theory that bird taming isn't an overnight thing, I guess I've been spoilt in the past. Clover is going to be some work, and I know that. I'd love to get him to the point where he basically lives on my shoulder and speaks without a care in the world. And I think I have the knowhow and patience to deal with this - but all the same, any suggestions or advice in comments would be appreciated.
He came over to inspect the camera as I was taking his picture.
Clover seems to be a sweet bird with a kind demeanour. He loves apple and almonds, but is strangely not fond of seeds. He can fly somewhat (Wings clipped but not a great job, which I'm fine with), but for the most part, like many parrots he prefers to use the combination of his own two feet and his prehensile beak to move and climb. He's very curious, inspecting anything you put in front of him both visually and tactilely, and I feel like he does WANT to explore, but has spent so much of his life confined that he feels like he'd be misbehaving to leave the safety of his cage. I hope he'll come to see this place as his home in due time, and to explore the house as he pleases.