ANY PARROT owner will tell you that if Hollywood had really wanted to make a scary movie called "Scream," it would have hired a hookbill for the lead role.

Screaming can turn parrot ownership into a real nightmare. It's a complicated problem with more causes than cures. But don't give up. It's possible to tone down if not entirely eliminate the ear-splitting part of the relationship you have with your bird and enjoy quieter times.

Following are several questions we received about screaming from ParrotChronicles.com readers this issue. I'll answer each individually, then use the rest of this column to discuss this frustrating behavior in general and offer some tips on how to stop it.

QUESTION: Our cockatiel's mate died a year ago. Scooby was so distraught he became loud and needed a lot of attention. We did our best but finally decided to get a second bird, a Quaker we named Shaggy.

--Jen and Tim, Virginia

We do know that wild birds who lose a mate do not pine or die of broken hearts, as some people believe. They probably call for a day or two, then simply look for another mate.

Part of finding a replacement mate may involve contact calls or other loud vocalizations--what we humans call screaming.

However, whatever the initial reason for Scooby's screaming, the noise in your home now probably has more to do with getting your attention than looking for a partner. You probably reinforce this behavior every time you enter the room to comfort your birds.

Adding another bird probably won't decrease the screaming. In fact, the noise may increase as the new bird learns to join in. Keep reading for some ideas on how to eliminate unwanted behavior by replacing it with more desirable manners.

QUESTION: I have a green-wing macaw and a severe macaw. I have spoiled them by bringing them upstairs with me when I shower or work on the computer. I want to be able to leave them downstairs and not have them scream. I know I shouldn't come down when they are crying because it reinforces the behavior. How do I break this cycle?

--Cristy Hamblin, cristy.hamblin@aig.com

Ignoring a behavior can eventually stop it, or, in scientific parlance, lead to its "extinction." However, it's not a cut-and-dried process and there are a couple of things you should watch out for.

One is something called the "extinction burst." Just before it stops a screaming habit, your parrot may actually scream louder or more frequently in a last-ditch effort to bring results.

If you happen to appear during this extinction-burst episode, you may reinforce your bird's behavior and inspire him to ratchet all future screaming to the intensity of the burst level, not a good thing. If you continue to ignore the behavior during the burst episode, it should extinguish itself. So there is hope.

However, there's also something scientists call "spontaneous recovery." As you might have guessed, this refers to the reappearance of the extinguished behavior with the slightest encouragement. Not good news for people who have struggled through the long process of eliminating a behavior by ignoring it.

These aren't the only problems with going the "extinction" route.

Another theory, called "intermittent reinforcement," holds that the more variable the reinforcement, the more enduring the behavior in the absence of the reinforcement.

In other words, your bird might think that continual screaming is the only way to ensure your return.

You have to return to your bird at some point. Let's say you go back an hour after the screaming began. If the bird associates your return with the screaming session it has just undertook, you may have just taught him that it takes an hour of screaming--or longer--to get your attention!

Read further for some solutions.

QUESTION: I've had my 5-year-old umbrella cockatoo, Joey, since he was a baby. We have always been very close. My fiancé and I have been together for two years. When I get home in the afternoon, Joey immediately begins to call for me. I will go to his room and bring him downstairs with me. I will hold him for a bit and then put him on his stand. He will begin to scream as he runs back and forth across his perch. When my fiancé comes home, Joey screams louder.

We have tried letting him scream without giving him attention, but this will go on for two or three hours until he gasps for air. It is getting to the point that he screams even when I hold him. We are out of patience!

--Amy Endres, amy.endres@gmacrfc.com

You have a couple of challenges going on here. First, understand that parrots are naturally one-person birds. Even though they may live in large flocks, wild birds spend their lives with one mate and defend their nests aggressively during breeding season.

Joey seems to have bonded with you and has been tolerant, at best, of your fiancé. He attacks when your fiancé goes into the bedroom: Joey's territory. Joey probably will become more aggressive toward your fiancé as time goes on, especially now that Joey has reached breeding age.

You can work on the relationship Joey has with your fiancé by letting him be the provider of all things good, such as treats and toys, while you reduce your interactions with the bird.

However, it's hard to fool Mother Nature. No matter what you do, Joey's bond with you and his aggression toward your fiancé may continue to grow, especially during breeding season.

As for the screaming, you probably help reinforce it when you arrive home from work and respond to Joey's calls by appearing in his room and picking him up.

The screaming directed at your fiancé may be associated with territorial aggression. If so, Joey probably gets reinforcement for this screaming in several ways.

One is from the natural release of anxiety and frustration he gets from defending his territory from an "intruder." He may also think screaming works if your fiancé leaves the room, turns away from him, or even picks him up and brings him to you.

The ABCs of screaming
So, what's the solution to screaming, the bane of many a parrot owner's existence? First, it helps to understand all of the possible reasons for it.

In general, you can break screaming into two categories: instinct driven and learned.

Instinct is the most obvious place to start when trying to determine the cause of screaming. After all, instinct drives most of a pet parrot's behavior.

If your parrot screams in the morning and again in the evening, he simply may be practicing the habits of his wild brethren. Many species vocalize loudly early in the day and once again at dusk. Some birds, such as the cockatoo, are so punctual you can almost set your watch by their outbursts.

The reason for all this lusty vocalizing? Wild parrots, and many pets, too, scream instinctually to make contact, to warn away intruders, and even to express enthusiasm for play.

Making contact
Many species of parrots flock in the wild. Nature tells them there is security in numbers. Single birds are vulnerable to predators and feel very uncomfortable. I suspect that many captive birds feel equally exposed and that this is at the heart of not only screaming but many other pet-parrot problems.

Most parrots call to locate other members of the family. In the wild, this group usually consists of between two to five birds, depending on the species.

When out of one another's sight, the birds use a loud call that their mate and other family members recognize. If the rest of the group is within earshot, it will respond with a similar contact call.

Parrots also call to tell one another it's time to leave an area together. I watched several families of hyacinth macaws in Brazil use this gathering call just before leaving a feeding site we were watching from a blind.

The hyacinth makes a distinctive short raspy sound that starts soft and gradually increases in volume, like a loudly purring cat. At the climax of the calls all the birds launched into the air and flew off together.

This scene was played out repeatedly as we watched several families of macaws leave the area.

I’ve heard yellow-naped Amazons in Guatemala use their own version of a contact call in much the same manner as the hyacinths.

Ongoing field research into parrot vocalizations may eventually tell us whether individual birds have their own signature calls, just as whales and many other types of marine mammals have signature whistles.

Stay away
Territorial displays are common among wild parrots, especially during breeding season. These displays often include not only body language but loud calls.

As with contact calls, many parrots call defensively in the mornings and evenings, in addition to whenever intruders enter their territory.

Last month I was walking through the forest in Peru with Dr. Charles Munn, one of the leading macaw researchers in the world. He heard a faint call in the distance and said, "There’s a blue-and-gold nest over there."

He could tell from a simple territorial vocalization that the bird, well over 100 yards away, was sitting near its nest.

Let's play
Many parrots also scream when they're playing. The forests are alive in the early morning hours with the sounds of screaming, playing parrots.

One of my most vivid memories of wild parrots is watching greater sulphur-crested cockatoos in Australia screaming and swinging from branches as they played for hours in the eucalyptus trees.

How to teach your parrot to scream
Beyond hard-wired instinct, our parrots learn to scream from us, their owners, when we unwittingly reinforce their behavior. Learned screaming is a huge problem in the companion-bird community.

Some parrots learn that screaming when their owner is talking on the phone will bring a tasty treat to shut them up. Others are reinforced when we return to the room to see what’s going on. It may take only one instance of rewarding your parrot with attention for him to link his behavior with what he wants.

How do you stop the racket? First, understand that it's difficult to end instinctual behavior, such as periodic contact screaming. This is one important reason why parrots, especially large ones, make poor pets for many people.

Eliminating learned screaming is a little easier. The good news is you can influence both types of screaming with the right approach.

Antecedents and consequences
The best way to influence behavior is through controlling the antecedent, or the event that preceded the behavior, and the consequence, or what happens afterward. These two very important things shape all behavior. Fortunately, you have some control over both.

If your parrot screams every time you leave the room, the antecedent for screaming is your departure. The consequence, at least in the past, is your return.

Simply ignoring your parrot's screaming may make it go away. However, waiting for this to happen can take a long time, and, as I mentioned above, the cure achieved through behavior "extinction" doesn’t always stick.

Positive reinforcement works better. Start by deciding which antecedents and consequences you want to use to shape your parrot's behavior.

Whistles instead of screams
Barbara, the director of operations for my company, is also a parrot owner and a terrific bird trainer. Barbara's blue-fronted Amazon parrot had a bad habit of screaming any time he knew Barbara was in the house.

Barbara decided to use positive reinforcement to replace the undesirable behavior with a more acceptable one. The goal: To teach her bird to whistle softly whenever he wanted her instead of screaming.

When the bird heard her in another part of the house and began calling, Barbara would freeze and not respond in any way. If the parrot made the soft whistle sound he also knew, she would respond with a similar whistle and go to him.

After a few days, the bird began using the more acceptable whistle to call Barbara instead of screaming for her.

Consistency is key. Barbara would have had a much more difficult time training her bird if there were other people in the house. Living alone at the time, she easily was able to control the antecedents--the activities and the environment--of her bird's behavior.

Approximation by approximation
Positive reinforcement can also work to bring complete quiet to a household fraught with noisy parrots. Let's take Cristy's macaws, who scream every time she goes upstairs, as an example.

First, Cristy should identify a treat her birds like to eat and start rewarding them with it every time they do something right. Alternatively, she can try rewarding them with a scratch on the head or another comfort, but these are "secondary reinforcers" - food treats usually make a bigger impression on animals.

From here, Cristy can try rewarding her birds with treats when they are quiet. Teaching a bird not to do something may sound backward. However, it's a concept most parrots can understand with the right approach.

Christy should start by taking a few steps up the stairs. If the birds are quiet, she should come back down and reinforce them with the preferred treat--a couple of sunflower seeds, a piece of apple, a head scratch.

Then she should head back upstairs a few more steps. If they remain quiet, she should go back down to reinforce them again for allowing her to proceed a little farther without screaming.

She should continue to repeat the procedure, increasing the period of time between reinforcements.

Each of these small steps in the training process is called an approximation. In Cristy's case, moving a few steps up the staircase is the first approximation, moving a few more is the second approximation, staying out of sight for 10 seconds at the top of the stairs is the third, and so on.

The final approximation should be the birds remaining quiet for an hour--or more--while she is upstairs.

Quiet at last
If the birds scream during the training process, Cristy should ignore it and go about her business. Later, when the birds are quiet for a few minutes, she can go back down and start the training process over again.

Begin the process from the last approximation your birds performed well. For instance, if the birds were quiet when Cristy got to the top of the stairs, but screamed after 20 seconds, she should try to pick the training back up from the top of the stairs; in other words, go back down to deliver the first reward no longer than 10 seconds into the new session.

Cristy could also try rewarding her birds for being quiet by simply bringing them upstairs with her. At each approximation, she should go down to pick them up as their reward.

If you're consistent in providing positive reinforcement, you should be able to teach your parrot to lower the noise level. Then you can freely work upstairs, sleep in, talk on the phone, spend time with human loved ones, and engage in other activities, all without hearing the ear-splitting call of a wild psittacine.

ParrotChronicles.com

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