For the past couple of months, Coyote started making a noise that I had no idea where he picked up. It's like an alarm sound... a long trill sort of, wAaw! wAaw! wAaw! He used to just do it every once in a long while but this past week or so, he's doing it more and more. My husband said he looked it up and it's the natural cockatiel alarm sound.

I hate it. We all hate it.

He's doing it more and more and I have no idea. He'll do it whenever and usually when nothing is going on. He'll do it if we're chilling and he's on my shoulder (my personal, ahem, favorite), if he's hanging out on top of his cage, when the budgies are there, when they're not, etc. I can't find a particular trigger and nothing startling is going on, so I have no idea what's making him make his "alarm" sound.

So far, we all just say, "Coyote! Stop it!" or try to distract him with something, etc. But then eventually he'll go back to alarm sounding.

How do you train a cockatiel to stop doing an undesirable behavior like this? He's not perfect, he does lots of little undesirable things but either I know exactly what the cause is or it's a one off type thing, so this is the first time I've had an issue with an on-going bad behavior and I have no idea what to do.

Suggestions? Should I just wait to see if he outgrows it (my favorite option) or should I actively address it somehow?

If you're sure that he's not actually reacting to something, like a hawk that he can see outside, then he might be doing it to get attention. The cure for it is to not give him any attention, and instead give him a mild negative consequence by ignoring him even more. When he starts making the sound, move him to somewhere that he doesn't want to be while paying as little attention to him as possible, then turn your back on him for a few seconds to make sure he gets the message. If he starts yelling on your shoulder, move him off your shoulder without speaking to him or even looking at him any more than you have to. If he starts yelling on top of the cage, stick him in the cage with a minimum of fuss. If the behavior is unrewarding he'll stop doing it. Pay lots of attention to him when he makes a sound you like to encourage him to use that sound instead of the annoying alarm sound.

Ok, thanks! That was my first instinct, intellectually, however everyone's first instinct is to tell him to quiet down because it's so... alarming! Ugh, it's a bad sound. I'll have to tell the family what the plan is so we don't react to it any longer.

The biggest issue is going to be the budgies. I think he maybe does it sometimes when the budgies are ignoring him which is 99% of the time and he wants to interact with them more (on his terms). Obviously, I can't sit down and have a chat with the budgies about not being too "cliquey" and therefore my first instinct is to remove them from the equation when he starts up with the alarm sound while stomping around the top of their cage. Moving their cage is a minor pain in the rear though, so I would like to avoid that if possible. I guess my plan is that if he starts up with the alarm call due to the budgies not including him, I'll pop him in his cage and them in theirs (easier said than done, as previous posted about but doable).

About how long is a "time out" like this appropriate?

Hopefully by ignoring him, he will get tired of no-one taking any notice....
Best of luck with this... don't know how I'd react with a noise I don't like, probably do it all wrong and shout be quiet! LOL

The time out doesn't have to last very long, a few seconds will do it. Any longer than that and the bird doesn't remember why you're ignoring him. If he's yelling to get the budgies' attention, it'll be faster to move him away from them when he starts doing it, instead of moving them. The basic idea is that whatever he wants goes further away from him when he makes that noise.

My birds do that sound too! Its mostly Cloudia but the other birds learned. I can imagine how annoying it must be.