My boyfriend and I got ourselves a couple of lovebirds about a month ago. They're gorgeous! They're 3-4 months old now and we've been making some slow progress with getting them used to us and their surroundings (and accidentally let them out of their cage when we weren't prepared for it, causing them to have their first unpleasant meeting with Mr. Window) but as birds are wont to, they are scared of our hands. Feeding them from our hand works, as long as we bring it to them, because they rarely come to us when we keep it in our hands and far away from them.

Now, I've read on a different forum that someone tried to get her lovebird to step up on her hand by covering it with a dishtowel and I decided to try that method by sticking my hand in a washcloth. Sure enough, one of the two hopped right on! He walked around for a bit (I even wiggled my fingers slightly just so he would know there was something underneath it but it didn't seem to phase him at all) and wasn't scared of my hand one bit. (I had to put him back on his swing after a while though because I was smiling so hard my cheeks were getting sore. Such a thrill, to have him on my hand, even if he didn't realise entirely that it was my hand!)

What I was wondering: is this a good method to get them more used of our hands? Have you tried training a bird to step up on a covered hand before? Will it help them overcome their fear of hands, or will they keep seeing it as an entirely different thing?