Training an Emergency Recall (& Piper's Great Escape)

Super-Generalizing Freeflight Recall

Freeflight for Companion Parrots: Beyond the "How-to"

Shiera’s Travels
Shiera is home! She is in good shape, minus all those nice wing feathers she grew in last winter. Shiera piggy-backed out of the house Saturday, Nov 7, got brushed by the screen and flew. She spent an hour in the top of a 70 ft eucalyptus tree, got scared out by a crow, then flew high across the park, calling back and forth to me, until I lost sight of her. I put up posters around the neighborhood, called, searched, contacted vets, pet stores, put ads online, in newspapers, on 911 Parrot Alert. She has the best recall indoors of all my birds, but has no experience outdoors at all, on a harness or otherwise. She called to me from the tree (including “come ‘ere! com

Observing: Let’s tawk
Robin Cherkas in her Living with Parrots Cage Free blog has a very nice post this week: Signs of the Old Coco. It resonates so much with what I have been experiencing with Carly recently, and with how I am stumbling my way through dealing with it. And I don’t mean stumbling in a bad way necessarily. Behavior is often not black and white and I think it’s necessary to step back and just observe sometimes. And let what we observe guide what we do, even if we don’t know exactly what the plan is all the time. It’s easy to overlook just being with your bird, when

Aiding Flight Skills Interpretation
Seeing how the ages old argument about flight skills in baby-fledged vs unfledged birds is being beaten to death debated again, with the assertion that said skills can be determined through still photos [ed. comment: ?!] Carly and I have decided to assist the experts. Clearly what the bird is in the process of doing, and what its intent is, is a key component to determining the skill of the flyer from the photo. To that end, we offer these photos to which thought bubbles have been helpfully added. I assure you, the utmost care was taken in conferring with the subject so as not to introduce observer bias into ascertaining the private behavior (thoughts) of the subj

Acclimation adventures, cont.
I don’t always take Piper into stores like I do with Carly, because of his tendency to freak out at things.  I try to pick times when it’s not too busy.   But late last night, making a quick stop at the neighborhood liquor store (greeting: “Hi Bird!” — whether I have a bird with me or not) I took both kiddos in with me.  The 5 police cars in the parking lot should have been a tip-off.  There were not just MEN in the store, in a tight space (recipe for freakout), but Many. Big. Loud. MEN. With guns. Which according to Piper is fine.  Just no big loud men with beers please. other

“Travelling the Training Maze with Carly Lu”
Welcome new readers from West Valley Bird Society in Los Angeles county where I spoke last night about my journeys down the bird training maze. After a loonnnng maze through 4 1/2 hours of Friday afternoon traffic, followed by an uncooperative AV projector partnership, it was a fun talk to give. (Intimate, shall we say?) Always delightful to have lots of audience input and questions. I also enjoyed seeing so many social birds (Carly approves!) and especially enjoyed meeting Francis, the friendly Fancy Fan-tailed pigeon. What a beauty, and an expert beak wrestler. I’m sure I will have another pigeon again someday!