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Thank you everyone for all your helpful comments. Feathers, I think I agree with you about a scared bird. Before his moult, he was never showing signs of being scared. He is such a cheeky bird, eg stealing cards while my daughter & i play cards, and loving a scratch in those hard to reach places (and yes, closing his eyes in ecstasy!!) As I'm a big woos when it comes to his biting (yes, I can give birth three times with no drugs, but I can't have a budgie bite me), my husband is working closely with him & letting him bite him. I've read Budgie Behaviour on Budgie Talk website, and they say to make him step up repeatedly till he stops biting - I just watched my husband do that with him, and Bluey stopped biting after the 5th step up. Amazing. And late this afternoon, he paced the door to ask to get out for the first time in over a week. Yay!! So I let him out and immediately climbed out & on to my hand & up my arm, nibbled friendly-ly on my arm...then bit me hard on my finger! Oh well, baby steps. And I've also re-arranged his cage & taken out his favourite toys for a couple of days, just like Budgie Talk said to. This is in case he's being territorial. If anyone else is having the same problems, this might be a good suggestion. Worth a try. I'm pretty sure Bluey is a boy - I've had girls before & his cere definitely looks like a boy. There are no light rings around his nostrils. And he's starting to talk - something girls may take longer to do, i believe. He actually wolf whistled to me today (made me happy - it's been a while since anybody did that, feathered or not!!) I'll keep you posted!

Nope. I've listened to them all and it sounds like none of them. It's more of a squeak-squeak-squeak continuous sound, which goes on and on, getting louder if you go near the cage, but quickly calming when you talk to him. As I said he sometimes does it when he eats but very softly and calmly. Like a cat's purr, but it's very annoying!!

The squeaking I'm referring to he has been doing since the day we brought him home. It's almost like he's scared or stressed because he'll do it when we walk past his cage, or in the middle of the night if you go to the toilet, even though he's in the next room with his cover on, you can hear him faintly start up. However, he makes a similar sound when eating sometimes, particularly when he's on his play-gym and we're not sitting anywhere near him. He seems to do it when he wants to go to bed and as you cover him it gets louder and louder till he's covered and you nicely say "shh, go to sleep" or something like that! So, I don't think he's imitating because of when he does it. We thought it was a baby bird thing, but maybe not as you would think he would have stopped when he's been part of our family (and it's noises of 3 kids) for 7 weeks or more. And before being with us, he spent a week in his cage in the breeder's home waiting for us to pick him up, and she also has 3 noisy kids!! And she said he never did it when she had him. Go figure. When I had him out of his cage last night, he had a little feed of millet, then, for the first time ever, took himself back to his cage. He's never done that - usually i have to put him back there myself and he reluctantly goes. How long does a moult go for???

Thanks everyone for your ideas. I know it will take time and patience, and maybe a few band aids, till i have my placid bird back. You know, for the first few weeks when we got him, he only looked scared occasionally - I can usually tell if he is scared as he makes himself look smaller and his eyes seem bigger. Sometimes he'd look like this and then i'd talk to him sweetly and he'd calm down and stopped making the strange sounds (what is the "squeaking" sound all about anyway...does anyone know?? Ever since we got him he "squeaks" sometimes). But since the change in personality, he looks scared a lot more often, and that's when he lashes out and looks vicious. I'll keep you posted.

Hi everyone. I'm a long-time-viewer, first-time-posting new member! I've had our baby budgie for about 7 weeks now. When we got Bluey he was only about 7 weeks old, a very placid and friendly little bird, always happy to sit on your finger or shoulder and have a nibble of your ear, or just sit beside you and nibble on a millet spray, but happy to be with us and only occasionally have a little fly around the room. (After having 2 psychotic birds, we were so pleased to get this friendly little chap! And finally a boy budgie!) His only wierd habit since we got him is to make an almost whiny soft chirp whenever he wanted to be covered for the night, or if we walked near his cage at night, or first thing in the morning. We put it down to him being a baby, and he is making sounds a baby bird makes (although our last birds never did it!?). He's been so friendly, he has even for the last couple of weeks enjoyed a lovely scratch on the top and sides of his head, closing his eyes in ecstasy (I guess!). He enjoys a diet of bird seed, the occasional millet spray, and a nice healthy treat of eucalyptus leaves or, if i can't get that, a few leaves of grevillea, all of which he loves. All in all, a very happy bird. Then suddenly overnight last week he has become a vicious "rottweiller" budgie - snapping at us if we put our hand vaguely near his cage, and if your hand goes near him when he's out of his cage, he gives you a good bite. I've put it down to his first moult and that he is going through budgie-adolescence, and have read that i have to just wait for him to get through it, but is there anything else i can do? I've resorted to putting white cotton gloves on so he doesn't hurt me, because i want to keep handling him so he doesn't regress, and he's still quite happy to sit with me...once he stops biting. He's just starting to talk so we can almost understand him, and he seems to be a really happy bird, chatting and playing...until we go near him. Help...I want my beautiful Bluey back.