My African grey has plucked her chest bare but her head is untouched — is she just bored?

Plucking is a symptom, not a diagnosis, and starting from boredom is exactly how the medical causes get missed for a year. Medical comes first, always: skin disease, parasites, pain (a bird will pluck over an area that hurts), liver or other systemic disease, and hormonal drive. That means an exotics vet exam and usually bloodwork.

One detail you gave is genuinely diagnostic. A bird cannot reach its own head. A bare body with a perfect head means she is doing this to herself, rather than a disease of the feathers themselves or another bird pulling them out, and that narrows the workup on day one.

Then the environment, which is where the persistent cases live. Light cycle: most parrots need a long, genuinely dark, undisturbed night, and a bird kept awake in a bright living room until midnight is a hormonal bird. Foraging: a bowl of food is an unemployed bird — wrap food in paper twists, hide it, make her work for most of what she eats. Regular bathing or misting, and enough humidity. Cage position: a bird with no wall at her back never fully relaxes. And this one surprises people — how you touch her. Stroking a parrot down the back and under the wings is sexual contact to her, and a chronically hormonal, frustrated bird plucks.

Keep a simple diary: hours of true darkness, when the plucking bouts happen, anything that changed at home. Bring it to the appointment; patterns show up there that nobody notices in the moment.

Be honest with yourself about the outcome. Where the follicles are damaged, some feathers will not come back. The realistic goal is a comfortable bird whose plucking stops progressing, and that is something your vet can genuinely work towards with you.