Max vs. Beeps

One of Beeps's favorite things to do involves hanging out on the tray under the stands, ripping up the newspaper lining, and throwing the paper on the floor. This can be a bit frustrating as the paper is there to catch the parrots' mess, and when he throws it around, it means more work for us. Here he is:
As I've mentioned before, Max and Beeps do not like each other. This constantly baffles me as Max and Calypso (a caique who looks exactly like Beeps) get along just fine, and Beeps and Stella (a grey, similar to Max) have no interaction. Beeps and Max both go out of their way to find and irritate each other.

Max usually "wins" these interactions when they take place on cages or stands -- she simply buzzes him or chases him around, as she is the superior flyer. They are on more equal footing when Beeps is in what we call his power position -- attacking from below. He's a scrappy little guy. As an aside, Thomas loves this about Beeps, possibly because it reminds him of himself. Thomas wrestled in high school and could have wrestled collegiately.

At this point, they are thinking of attacking each other, but neither one has truly made the commitment yet:
Notice how Max is standing on the ladder instead of the grate. She's learned that if she does this, she can still attack Beeps while protecting her feet from his attacks.

In mid-attack. She's constantly hopping around so that he can't get her feet:
Back up on the ladder and attacking:
I have a video of them attacking each other. I have been trying to post it for over three hours. It seems there is a problem with blogger, so I will post it in another entry when it's working again.

Rest assured this is not something we encourage. Although they are of similar size, so it's unlikely either one could remove a toe or a beak on the other one, they could still do some damage.

Usually, I'll break things up and separate them. However, sometimes I'd rather let them work things out themselves, in hopes they may be able to find a better solution for their problem than I could.