Neuro preening the baby cocky

When I brought the little red tailed black cocky chick home, who I now call Alamo, I was excited to introduce him to my birds. I expected there to be some adjustment time and there was, I just supervised and introduced one bird at a time. I figured Neuro would be a bit too much with his energy level so I started with Chili. Chili is only young herself so she would be more subdued and gentle. At first she preened Alamo's feathers around his beak and his chest feathers, it was quite sweet. She then moved around to his back and jumped on! He didn't like that and squawked loudly his discontent. At this point I realized that Chili is young but she is just now exploring the pressure of her beak and now is probably not a good time to let her play with the chick. So this meant I would introduce Neuro, after all, the purpose of this is to get Alamo used to other birds as the other two hand raised black cockies hate other birds! They throw tantrums and flail about, tossing their wings from side to side, head cocked back and wailing. Such a site for a bird as small as a zebra dove to cause. Why is this a problem? Well, our current red tailed black cockatoo on a perch in the park is Ash. He's lovely, you can get a 18 month old baby to feed him seeds he's so gentle. The trouble is, the moment a bird lands on his perch or a man (he favors women) gets too close he jumps off of his perch and destroys the landscaping. He also goes on adventures across the billabong (see cockatoo shenanigans and crocodile joy) and that's why I want to raise a very well socialized bird. People often ask me how I got Neuro to be the lovable, outgoing, friendly, bird friendly, non sex-specific bird that he is and I tell them "socialize early and often". That's what I'm trying to do here and Neuro surprised me with his gentle affection toward Alamo. Here is some video of their interaction while preening.

Location:Alligator creek