A week of bird-sitting goes well when the bird barely notices the change of address, and badly when a kind host improves things. Your friend's bird arrives with its own cage, food, and habits, and your job is custodial, not creative: same seed or pellets, same cover time, same words and whistles if you know them, in the quietest sensible room of your home. Before your friend leaves, get the handover in writing, what the bird eats and when, when the cage is covered and uncovered, what the bird loves, what frightens it, and what an off day looks like for this particular bird.
Setting up the guest room
Put the cage in a calm room away from your own pets, ideally where the bird can see household life without being in its traffic. If you keep birds yourself, house the guest in a separate room and handle it after your own birds, washing hands between cages, because a healthy-looking visitor can carry things your flock has never met, and the same courtesy protects the guest from yours. Bird-proof the one room before any out-of-cage time: windows and mirrors the bird might fly at, gaps behind furniture, open water, and other pets shut out. Keep the cage where it first lands; moving it daily to follow the sun unsettles a bird already adjusting to new sounds and faces.
The week's daily rhythm
Feed exactly what came with the bird, in the amounts your friend described, and resist upgrading, supplementing, or offering your own bird's treats, because sudden diet changes upset digestion and a bird off its food in a strange house is hard to read. Change water daily, lift out tray paper so you can actually see droppings, and keep the sleep schedule strict, with the cover on at the friend's stated time even if your evening is still going. Talk to the bird at the cage, let it come to the bars in its own time, and keep handling to what the bird already knows; a tame bird may step up happily, while a shy one should be allowed to just watch you for the week. Short, predictable visits beat one long, intense social session.
Out-of-cage time, safely supervised
If your friend says the bird flies free, let it out only in the prepared room, only while you are in it, and with time in hand before you need it back in, because chasing a guest bird around a strange room is how trust and feathers get damaged. Keep sessions calm and end them the way your friend described, with the familiar perch, treat, or phrase. Never let the bird out alongside your own pets or birds, however friendly everyone seems, and never carry it through the house on your shoulder past open doors. If the bird will not return and is safe where it sits, dim the room, offer the cage with food visible, and phone your friend before escalating to towels or nets.
Problems during the week, and who to call
Know before the week starts which avian veterinarian the bird uses, how your friend wants to be contacted, and at what point they want a call rather than a message. A guest bird that stops eating for a day, sits fluffed and quiet, breathes with effort, or bleeds from a broken feather needs that call and, if your friend agrees or cannot be reached and the bird is suffering, a vet visit rather than watchful waiting in an unfamiliar home. Write down what you noticed and when. Having the feeding times, cover time, vet and owner contacts handed over in a KinsLe Care Pass means you are never reconstructing a strange bird's care from memory mid-crisis.