African Grey Parrots Mating?

Question
Hi, I'm unsure if you can help on this but i really hope you can... We have two African grey parrots one male whose 10 the other is 2 female, woke up this morning and the female was on the males cage. Normally when this happens they will fight slightly for the female to get off his cage, we were woken up by this weird snotty noise the male was making and they seemed really lovey together although normally if he tried this the female would make a loud noise and fly away from him this morning she didn't she seemed to be happy enough, i'm pretty sure shes too young only  2 years of age the male had his wings dropped and was making the noise and she was following him around the cage... Is she too young or was this a sign of them starting to mate? Really sorry to have bothered you if you are unable to help. Many thanks for reading my question.
Ang :)

Answer
Hi, Angie.  Thanks for posting!

I don't have experience with greys, but I have lots of experience with many other species of parrots for over 18 years.  You may want to search the net for african grey sites specifically and/or ask another expert on this site.  However, I do know that in most parrot species, your female is still a baby at 2 years of age.  She won't even be sexually mature until she's about 5-6 years of age.  Parrots pair-bond before they will consider mating.  Pair-bonding is when the male feeds the female beak-to-beak and other lovey-dovey behaviors.  Considering your grey's aren't even housed together, they aren't pair-bonded.  However (there's always an however when it comes to parrots!), this doesn't mean your male's hormones aren't running rampant with another bird in the house and he most likely wants to mate!  Sometimes, a male will try to mate with a new female that is just placed in the cage if he's "lonely" enough.  

Like I stated, I'm not familiar with grey's behavior in general, but I'd say if they were thinking about mating, it would be the male chasing the female around, not vice versa.  A person who keeps greys might be able to tell you what type of behavior your male grey was exhibiting with his dropped wings and his snotty noise.  The snotty noise could really have been a growl and he was trying to get away from the female!  

Chrys