Strange 'neck craning' behavior?

[Lawrence]

Hi all,

I got a new bird last weekend, a pretty green personata with a strange behavior. My observation as follows:

1. It likes to crane its neck as if to look at something at the ceiling, it cranes left and it cranes right, not all the time, but often enough.
2. It sleeps in a normal standing position, it may put its head on the back altho i have not observed this because I cover the cage.
3. It prefers to stay at the bottom of the cage
4. It can stay on a perch but not for very long before it goes back to the bottom
5. It can dangle around the cage and moves around it
6. As far as I can tell, it's not fluffing up when not sleeping
7. It eats normally, seeds for the moment in the quarantine cage

Can anyone offer an insight on the neck craning behavior? I read about stargazing but not sure if it applies to my new bird. I picked her up because of the very thin orange band on her chest.

Thanks in advance,

Lawrence

[linda040899]

I have a Peachfaced Lovebird that does the same thing. Everything is normal except for the head position and the other related behaviors you described. It's still stargazing, although not a bad case of it.

My lovebird is a hen and she has an older mate but I've never seen any mating behavior between them.

[personatus]

I was speaking to a breeder friend of mine about something similar. He has 2 male personatus, both dominant pied. Everytime he puts them in a show cage to take to a sale or a show, they start doing this, quite bad sometimes. At home, they have never done it once. The one bird he took to a show, but obviously it never worked out with the bird acting crazy. He can't sell either bird because it kind of puts people off when the birds going a bit loopy in the cage. Both are around 2.5 years old now and he's given up moving them to a show/sale. The one is breeding I do believe. We put it down to stress?

Your birds problem does sound a bit like stargazing, especially if it's been happening for a week now. Hope it turns out ok.