How Do I Get My Bird To Trust Me: Helpful Tips to Establish a Bond with Your Pet

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At some point, you may have come across captivating videos of birds playing and going about their shenanigans without a care of their owners recording them or standing close by.

If you’re also a proud bird parent, you might feel disheartened that they’re not as fond of you as you are of them. More specifically, your bird isn’t as comfortable with you as the one in the video is with its owner.

While many bird species make popular pets, they are in no way different from wild birds in displaying a skittish and sceptical demeanour towards humans. This is especially true when your bird is store-bought as an adult.

Thus it can sometimes prove challenging to break the ice and get your bird to trust you.

Worry not - below are some helpful pointers that’ll help you establish a wonderful bond with your adorable critter.

1. A Secure Environment

"Your goal is to ensure your bird its new environment is safe and its components, including you, are not a threat."


If your pet bird is relatively new, the first thing you need to do is let it adjust to its surroundings. 

Typically being a type of prey, birds tend to be wary of predators (including humans) and get stressed during travel and exposure to new environments - be sure not to make any loud noises or fast movements near the enclosure that might startle them. Keep the bird inside a quiet room and cover the cage so it can take its time to calm down without focusing on looking around and panicking. You can progress the next day to taking off the cover and being near the cage.

Let the first few days be uneventful – you may move its cage near a window for fresh air and sunlight or sit near the cage and speak to your bird, but don’t try to handle it or make sudden movements. You must maintain slow movements and low noise around your bird until it has fully adjusted to you. 

Please DO NOT take the bird outside its cage until it's comfortable with you handling it, or it’ll be troublesome getting it back in. 

Your goal is to ensure your bird its new environment is safe and its components, including you, are not a threat.

Find out more about caring for a pet bird as a new bird parent in my article -

~ How Should I Take Care Of My New Pet Cockatiel? ~

2. Understanding Your Bird

"Knowing your bird's patterns and preferences will help establish the manner of interaction you need to initiate."

A crucial aspect of your relationship with your pet is your ability to understand its basic behaviour. Its reaction to your arrival, its preferences, nap times, eating patterns – everything gives you a clue to decoding what will help you strengthen your bond. Doing so requires time, patience and observation on your part. 

Firstly, you need to identify whether your bird is comfortable around you. Knowing this will help you establish the manner of interaction you need to initiate with it. For example, it's not a good idea to teach a scared bird to step up or take it out of the cage, but you may do this with a bird that is at ease with you around. 


~ My pet budgies make every effort to nest in my hair ~

A relaxed bird will not move or fly away, flap around the cage, hiss, or in any way get spooked by you nearing the enclosure and will accept treats by hand. Simply put, if your bird is comfortable with you, the bird will not be alarmed when you are around.


~ Joey always sings to greet me ~

Here is a good way of identifying if your pet is comfortable with you: if the bird is moving around the cage or singing etc before you came close, it would not slink into a corner or stop moving but continue in its activities. 

If your bond is strong, your bird may even show signs of happiness at your approaching, like singing, moving towards and not away from you, and actively looking for goodies or cuddles to get rewarded with. 

The above can also apply to a bird you’ve had for a while. Observe its behaviour around you and note if it’s comfortable in your presence. 

Also, observing your bird’s eating patterns and preferences will help you figure out the foods they prize, which will later come in handy for bribing them and winning their favour. 


3. Spending Time

"It’s never about spending lots of time, it’s about spending the right time."

Observe your pet’s daily routines and note down the times that they consider play times (when they're especially active), feeding times (generally when they tend to get hungry and /or a specific time you change the food in the bowls), nap times, and times when they choose idle around. I would consider 'idling' time and feeding time to be the best times of the day for your bird to get to know you. 

Like any other creature, birds will quickly recognize and bond with those who feed them. Thus, your involvement in providing food in the feeding bowls will help them identify you as a safe provider. Also, knowing their preferred foods (such as sunflower seeds, grass seeds, etc) is helpful as you can offer them by hand as treats and win your pet's favour. 

Birds are most active during playtime (mine tend to get especially mischievous during the evenings) and will whistle, screech, jump around, chew on stuff, fight, etc. I usually play with my birds at this time – they nest in my hair, play with my necklace, do whistle duets, preen me, and are free to do as they wish.


~ Joey and Lee constantly fight for my attention ~

While a new/shy bird might not do as much, you can offer treats, whistle/speak to your bird, let them inspect you – birds sometimes nibble on fingers and whatever else is near – and generally let them do as they like. Or you can simply sit there – it's often a while before birds can be themselves in your presence. 

There are also times of the day when your bird decides to switch to battery-saving mode and sit in one place – maybe chew on a toy, preen, or look around the place. You can put this time to good use by sitting near the cage and talking to it, or doing some activities like completing your homework, folding laundry, etc. You’re getting them used to your presence and the things you do daily.

Casually offering a treat as you go about the house is also a good idea. 


4. Prevent Irreparable Mistakes

"There are many ways to deal with the obstacles of owning a bird, but smacking, screaming, or shouting are neither helpful nor healthy."

During their journey to making a bond with their pet, many owners make the horrible mistake of hitting/smacking their bird, screaming at it, or even starving it.


Birds are not intelligent enough to understand punishment of any kind. Mistakes such as these might damage your relationship with your bird to the point that it becomes difficult to move on.


Many birds nibble or nip at their owners when being handled either as a way of exploring or discomfort; in reflex, you might smack them to get them to let go or stop. Doing so is a terrible mistake - you’ll only manage to ruin your progress and make your bird even more scared of you. 


Birds are fragile creatures, and hitting them may cause more harm than intended. 


Secondly, being sentient creatures, hitting may cause your bird to develop a fear of you and lead to further discomfort and hesitation during interactions. 


Ensure you’re mentally prepared that your bird might nibble at you or bite and then try to handle it. 



~ Joey often nips at me or others ~


Some especially loud birds might scream and screech for their humans' attention. To shout at it to stop will reinforce their behaviour since they don’t understand the words, only that they managed to get your attention. Or worse, you might establish yourself as intimidating.


And lastly, starving. While taking away a meal as punishment might work for a dog, birds are nowhere near that level of intelligence and will only be agitated further without any recognition for whatever wrong they have done (such as chewing up belongings, biting, etc).


Taking away their food so your bird is more tempted to eat from your hand isn’t the best or healthiest way to go either.


There are many ways for dealing with everyday obstacles faced as a bird parent, but none of the above is helpful or healthy for your bird.

That’s All, Folks.

Do you think this article was helpful or lacking in any way? Drop in your responses and critiques in the comments; they’ll be most valuable in enabling this blog to grow.

And if you’ve seen an improvement in your bird using these tips, comment down below and let me celebrate with you as well!

Any ideas for future articles and questions would be most appreciated, too.

You can check out other articles based on cockatiel care and training on my blog page.

I will be putting up more articles covering rehabilitation, enclosures, diet, free flight, and training with species like mynahs, turtles, snakes, dogs, and more.

If there are any changes you'd like to add or changes you'd like to have made, feel free to contact me at the below-mentioned socials -

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