Hi Maaya,
This definitely sounds like hormonal behavior. Does the male Sun Conure interact with your female? He may be interested in her, which would make you a rival or intruder. In the wild, parrots do not have friendships with other parrots. They live in flocks for protection, juvenile parrots will interact, but adult parrots will choose a mate and then view other parrots as a rival or an intruder. When they are in breeding condition, a male will not allow other adult birds near the mate, and will even turn on his mate to force her back into the nest if the intruder doesn’t back off.
Is the conure flighted or are his wings trimmed? If he can fly, I would suggest having his wings trimmed. This will help him settle back down and the feathers will grow back at the next molt. Some birds get aggressive when they can fly and are better pets with a wing trim. It’s better to get him clipped, than leave him flighted where he will keep attacking you to the point that you feel you need to find him another home. Is he out of the cage with the other birds most of the time? Do you allow him to come and go from his cage as he pleases? Birds need to have some level of dependence on humans to be a good pet. Many birds will get unruly or aggressive if you just let them come in and out of the cage when they choose to. He needs to only come out when you take him out, on your hand. If you are letting him physically interact with the female conure a lot, then you will need to keep them separate if you want him to be a good pet. Birds will almost always choose another bird over a human, so if you let the two conures bond, both are going to become wild and you won’t be able to handle either of them. Sometimes when you have two birds that like each other, you have to take each bird to another room to handle it. This is something else you can try. He is definitely jealous and hormonal from what you describe. He attacks you to keep you away from the other conure. This means he is bonded to her and doesn’t want to be a pet, or he is bonded with you and doesn’t want you to handle her or the Eclectus. While it may seem to be sudden, he is just now becoming sexually mature, so this explains the timing. Many people get several young birds and let them interact. Everything will be going well, and then they start getting older and becoming sexually mature. This is when the trouble starts – aggression towards the owner or towards the other birds. So try some changes, even if it means keeping the birds apart from now on, and see if your male settles down and gets tame again.
Thank you for asking Lafeber,
Brenda
