Carly Lu’s Flight Blog

Since comments about my recall blog post on chat lists have descended to criticism by insinuation, here are a few clarifications.

Annie

What Annie has to do with anything is beyond me. Annie was Hugh’s bird, not “ours”, and he did the training with her, not me. We never trained each others’ birds for freeflying. Ever. We felt it was best when flying where it was very crowded if they were totally focused on one person. We also had different training styles, and disagreed on some things, including some aspects of Annie’s training.

If anyone really cares about what happened to her, why has no one ever asked any of the people directly involved? What I can say is that she was returned to Wendy Craig not because of problems flying, but because with 5 large birds in a 1-BR apt, her presence was very disruptive. She was aggressive to Gizmo and Carly, and Otis was plucking her head bare. She loves Wendy more than anyone else in the world, and the three of us struggled discussing that decision for a long time. I think she is where she is happiest, and that was really the bottom line. In the end it was Hugh’s decision, and I think he made the right one under the circumstances.

Personally, it makes no difference to me if my birds learn to free fly or not. I take it on their own terms, and help them learn as much as they can. I just want the best life for them, and want them to be able to enjoy being outdoors. Unlike Carly and Otis, who are avid flyers, from what I observed Annie was actually the most animated and relaxed when at home eating and chatting. The bird’s welfare is the most important factor, not the freeflyer’s desire for sport. That is why I say, “train the bird you have.” Not necessarily for freeflight, unless you and the bird are both well prepared for it, but for exercise and enjoyment in general, whether it’s at home, in an aviary, or on an outing in a harness.

The obsession with free-flying I think misses the main point of why most parrot owners want to look into allowing flight: to enrich their birds’ lives. Companion parrot owners don’t dismiss birds to live on the back lot because they don’t live up to their sporting expectations.

Comments

Blog comments are were* indeed moderated. Anyone who has ever had a blog knows how many dozen spam comments sometimes come in daily, advertising everything from viagra to porn sites. Moderating is the only way to prevent everything from going directly onto my site. Most blog sites are moderated specifically for this reason. I will look into improved spam-filtering products.

ALL comments submitted to my blog that are not spam or sales pitches are posted and/or replied to unless the author is actively promoting a dangerous or fraudulent product. In some cases the comments become a new blog post of their own. Some chat list comments on my blog and the silliness over “peer review” are so laughable I have quoted them on my blog myself.

What I do not welcome, and why I do not participate in the FF list, is the endless, circular, rehashed arguments month after month, and year after year, and the very low remarks made even by the moderator to very reasonable, seasoned trainers like Chris Shank (he levels the accusation that killing birds is one of her training alternatives if they don’t “cooperate.”) I submit many of my ideas and posts to professional trainers for review, but I am selective about whose advice I seek. It is a waste of my time to solicit comments from fringe trainers whose ideas almost the entire professional training community rejects. That’s also why I don’t solicit input from Joe Krathwohl. Professionally that’s why I don’t put ads up on Craigslist to get advice on interpreting ocean currents.

As for peer review, any scientist knows that a conference presentation is not peer reviewed. The conference organizers look at ideas on abstracts and decide if it looks interesting enough to warrant including. IAATE does not endorse presenters or presentation material at their conferences, the same as any scientific conference, and they state that on their web site.

I rarely comment on anything from chat lists, but because my blog feed is linked on a site of someone who was following “recall optional” advice and coming very close to losing a bird, I made an exception.

We will now resume our normally broadcast blogging.

*UPDATE: Moderation has been turned off, spam filters on, we’ll see how it goes.

It was exactly 3 years ago today that Carly did her first jump-flap off the counter onto my arm. Even with all our other flying adventures, it’s still the most memorable event. I don’t know who was more excited, me or her!

Here she is a couple weeks later (and a few cell phone cameras ago!) practicing. You can barely see here, but she has only 2 or 3 flight feathers on each side.

She was so eager to practice every day that when we were finished she’d often leave her dinner to come back and do more. Contrafreeloading in action!

I think she likes this stuff.

Carly doing a vertical “paratrooper drop” landing at the beach. Photo © Hillary Hankey 2009.

Of course we’re celebrating this afternoon by…. going to the beach.

For an article on techniques to try to help previously clipped birds take this first step, see the current issue (Summer 2009) of Good Bird Magazine where Mandy Andrea has an article on teaching the mature bird.

One of the nice things about warm summer evenings here are the beach sunsets. I noticed a woman photographing us for quite a while yesterday, and it turns out she’s a travel photographer, Diane Marinos, who lives nearby and is doing a personal series on Scripps Pier in all of the varying light and weather conditions. Should be a great series — its so changeable here with the fog and cloud banks, crystal clear Santa Ana winds, etc.

I had been only training Piper up above the beach where he was more comfortable. He got spooked too much down below when on his harness, so I decided to take it more slowly. Now he sits on top of my head and sings and whistles and gets treats, while Carly goes on flights. Yesterday she was mostly interested in hanging out and watching the sunset. Very relaxing for all of us.

I started flying Carly at the beach once she started to show an interest — by spreading out her wings and kind of bouncing back and forth. The behavior I observed from Piper earlier this year was entirely different — neck outstretched, occasionally attempting to do a startle flight. This is not the behavior of a bird that wants to fly for the fun of it; it’s the behavior of a bird who is afraid. So now that he’s getting more acclimated I’ll start doing some harness training down on the beach and take it from there.

I was talking to Wendy last week about something I’ve been pondering while Piper is in training. And that is, if he’s not eager to go outside, gets spooked, and on top of that there are lots of risks inherent in outdoor flying — why push it? I haven’t been, but occasionally I think about what our long term plan should be. And really, it’s the same as it was with Carly: I’ll take it as far as he’s comfortable with. He doesn’t like to be left in the office when we go out to the beach, so I thought it was worthwhile to give him the opportunity to acclimate to being out there on a harness. He flies to the door often when I have the leash in hand now, so it’s clear he isn’t reluctant to go outside. And if whistling and talking are any indication of being relaxed and happy, I’d say it was worth it. Now we’ll just see where to go next.

The second photo looks like Piper and I have smoke streaming out of our heads. LOL. Carly must be off flying in this one.

Photographs © 2009 Diane Marinos.

There is a lot of good information on the web about parrot behavior, training and care. I’m going to try to give a shout-out to a site or blog that people may not know about every so often. The more we can learn from each other the better!

This is one I just discovered myself recently (thanks Sid) and it is full of well thought out posts that are grounded in a background of Applied Behavior Analysis, focusing on providing enrichment, empowerment and choice in our relationship with our birds. The author, Robin Cherkas, features her own flock and their amazing “fort” set-up in her blog.

Living with Parrots Cage Free

The most recent entry, Deal or No Deal, starts, “Each day I contemplate ways to give Coco choices, whether seemingly small or large. . . .” How cool is that?

I’m trying to figure out a way to upscale Fort Coco into a full size Fort Raz. People need forts too. Yep.

This should be easier.   http://CarlyLusFightBlog.com

I think all the old links are redirecting to the new address.  You may have to renew the RSS feed if you have one.

(For those who never knew, “likambo” is the word in the Congo language of Lingala for “trouble.”)

I have been asked by the photographer to remove his photos of Carly from my sites.

So, as a start (until our family wedding shenanigans are over and I can get everything else removed)…. introducing our new blog banner: Carly mid-flip, taken by Hillary Hankey in April 2008. I love this photo because it so captures the exuberance of her flying.

There are major web site collaborations and improvements in the works anyway, so hopefully this will be extra incentive to getting that finished!

Carly, mid-flip, eyes closed! © Hillary Hankey 2007.

. . .
NOTE: the new blog banner may not show up if you have visited this site recently and the image is cached on your computer. Refreshing the page or closing and reopening the web browser may be needed.

Sheira is 1 year old today (give or take a few days — her previous owner, who she is named after, did not know the exact day).

She was clipped from wingtip to “armpit” when I brought her home, and yet she was a fearless skydiver. She is all grown in now and flies around the house like a flutterbee (butterfly x bumblebee!)

And all are fine. When I start getting mail of the postal kind from people wondering if the the birds and I are OK, I know it’s time to update! May was a very busy month at work and at home so I haven’t been able to write blog posts, which I usually spend a bit of time with.

However, I do have a Facebook account now that I update regularly with tidbits and photos that are often about the birds.

You can find us by clicking on the Facebook profile on the right sidebar —>

Here are a few highlights from the last month.

Hanging out on roof racks (our new wheels!)

hangin on the patio:

hangin at the pub with Henry & Hill:

hangin at the pool, checkin out guys’ butts:

meetin’n'greetin at Starbucks:

helping:

and just being pretty:

So much to update.

The IAATE* annual meeting in Cincinnati was a great experience. Just a few highlights:

• The roundtable discussion on “Moody, Hormonal and Breeding Behavior” with participants including Cassie Maline (leader), Susan Friedman, Sid Price, Steve Martin, Dr. Ellen Cook, plus many zoo trainers with problem cases. What a treat to hear input from everyone.
• Susan Friedman’s 3 hour lecture on operant conditioning. I’m still digesting all of this in-depth talk. Everytime I hear Susan, I walk away with so many ideas for new things to think about and try.
• Barbara Heidenreich’s talk on innovative uses of positive reinforcement training with breeding and exhibit birds in zoos. Training isn’t just for showbirds anymore!
• Training talks by Wouter Stellaard (NEI), Cari Clements (NEI), Sid Price, and Steve Martin.

…
and…

The new IAATE Companion Parrot Committee was approved. This will feature a public web site specifically for pet owners, a newsletter, IAATE reviewed training articles, information on specific parrot species, enrichment, and more. Members of the committee are: Catherine Vine (chair), Sid Price, Barbara Heidenreich, Susan Friedman, Chris Shank, Dr. Ellen Cook, Lara Joseph, Wendy Craig, Robin Shewokis, Julie Murad (Gabriel Foundation), Rebecca O’Connor, Tex Hankey, Teresa Zakutansky, Linda Morrow (Clicking with Birds), and myself.

We’re very excited to get started!

*International Association of Avian Trainers & Educators

… soundtrack.

Someday I’ll realize my dream of living in a treehouse.

No screaming parrots, screaming monkeys, or new age flutes on this one (unless they’re in your living room). Half sunny, half rainy. Everyone here is quite relaxed and chattery with it on. Except me, who is quite relaxed and napping with it on.