Just a guess, but he may associate you with that bad experience, and since you did get him from an animal shelter you really have no idea of the "baggage" he may have brought with him.  My little sun conure was injured when he got hung up in a rope perch, and when I took him out later that evening to check on him he jumped off my hand to the (carpeted) floor and broke a blood feather.  He was in so much pain from losing his flights from the injury that he didn't bother to hide it.  Trust was completely destroyed, he still allowed me to touch him inside his cage, but would bite the crap out of me if I asked him to step up, and it took almost a year for him to be comfortable with being out of his cage again.  I thought I'd blown it too but it does take time and you must be understanding of the little guy.  Right now he may be associating stepping up on your hand with his fall, and even if he fluttered to the ground it may have been a very frightening experience for him.  You can still get him out with a stick, and that's a start.  Give him time to rebuild the trust that your hand is a safe perch for him.  Ditto the lunging at strangers, too.  It may be that he took a bad fall in a previous life and this has brought those memories to the front again.  I'm sure there'll be others to give you advice, too.  Just be patient with him and try to look at things through his eyes.

I agree with both ZM and Nan. I want to add that since you got a pretty good bite from him, you would not be human if you didn't approach him with a little more care. If you are afraid he's going to bite you, he probably will. They sense things like that much more than we realize. My first GW could scare the pants off a full grown man, but any of my bird friends could walk up, put their hand out, and say 'up' and he stepped right up. Anyone who even felt fear shouldn't get too close, but those who were completely unafraid were instant friends. Believe me, they know. Just take your time with him and you will get your buddy back. And NEVER, EVER hand him off to someone he doesn't like or doesn't know. He does not have to like everyone.   Peggy

 

Have you ever tried just sitting on the floor in front of his cage and reading a book, or even getting a picture book and reading to him?  My shy guy Shannon took forever to feel comfortable with me coming near him, a lot of that was my fault because I wasn't really myself at the time (but that's a whole 'nother story) and he could sense something bothering me and was scared of me.  That's what I used to do, leave the door open and sit on the floor in front of him and read story books.  Nan's got a great idea with his favorite treat.  I'm bad about using pine nuts as bribes, they've been good for all sorts of things.  When you look at him (while you're on the pc) do you look straight at him, or kinda sideways?  Predators have their eyes in front and will give a full face look, and sometimes that bothers our birds when we do the same thing.  If he's still a little leery of you right now I can see him being a bit nervous.  The good news is, it sounds like he is very interested in you, just can't quite figure if you're a good thing or a bad thing.  Just go slow in re-winning back his trust, sometimes it's one step forward and two steps back, but you've got a long relationship ahead of you and plenty of time.  I know I've done things that have set back trust issues with my big macaw, all you can do is take a deep breath, realize that we're only human after all, and start over again.

 

 

 

Ruby,

Bird Talk this month has some excellent articles on trust rebuilding and training. I'm working with a dyh amazon on  this and thought you would find the articles helpful Nan