Carly Lu’s Flight Blog

The building where I work has a floor plan like a rectangular ring: offices (36) along the outside walls, labs on the inside, and a wide corridor in between. 422 feet of corridor in fact, in a big loop. Yeah, wow. And by the time I leave at night I’m the only one on the floor.

So the last two nights I’ve started flying Piper there — it’s fantastic! We can do 150 ft straight line recalls, big loops where he’s out of sight 3/4 of the time, and loop around as many times as we want for stamina building. I hadn’t thought about it much because Carly never wanted to fly in the building (except to go visiting neighboring labs); she’s always preferred being outdoors, even as a youngster on walks. But for Piper it’s perfect. He’s already very good at flying down; the very first time he attempted it from a tall eucalyptus tree he did it like a champ. And he’s fearless with maneuvering tight turns. But he still spooks far too often outdoors for my comfort (or his) and his body language can go from relaxed to tense very quickly; it’s a danger that I want to take my time with to avoid, especially in a young flyer. His recall inside and outside is great, but that doesn’t help if there’s a panic flight. So getting lots of flying practice inside, while continuing to mature with handling unfamiliar things outdoors, is a very good combination right now. I have a feeling it will increase his confidence level in general too.

He was panting after two laps last night, so it will be fun to monitor changes in that.

That’s longer than the Infiite Corridor (825 ft)

Since this blog is one of those places that makes flying outdoors look fun, I want to point out, again, that in addition to having a good recall, it’s critical to have good flight skills as well. If you want a bird that can stay alive that is. Good flight skills include: can maneuver well and turn sharply, can fly down from heights, has been flying indoors or in a controlled environment long enough to have developed some muscle strength, and does not have partially clipped or damaged wings. Things a predator will have a field day with (”predators” including dogs, cats, raptors, and cars, not to mention birds like seagulls, ravens and crows who can just be intent on chasing an intruder away): a bird who is not acclimated to being outdoors, has little to no ability to turn or maneuver, has never flown down from heights before, has wings that physically impair its ability to turn or fly fast, has never flown in wind, has little stamina.

No matter what position one takes on training recall, or the method used to train it, it is just supremely irresponsible to put a bird at risk by rushing the move outdoors when basic flight skills are not in place. And yet I see people doing just that, and encouraging others to do so.

I would really like to find a single serious trainer who believes this isn’t true. All it takes is one surprise stiff breeze or startle flight. Even with a bird who is ready with these skills the transition outdoors is a very risky time because it’s a totally new environment. Adding the handicap of poor skills is terribly unfair to the bird.

(Oh, gee, there I go being “negative” again!)

Update:
First, for those who are not familiar with free flight lingo, any flight outdoors without restraints is “free flight.” Just because you’re only asking for 2-4 feet does not mean that’s “recall training” and not free flight. If a bird has a spook flight or gets caught in an unexpected wind, that 4 foot recall you were asking for becomes completely irrelevant. I believe flight skills and recall should be trained together; that doesn’t mean you do the most rudimentary recall with a completely inexperienced, partially clipped bird outdoors. As much as possible should be done indoors — learning how to land, turn, make sharp maneuvers, fly down. The bigger the indoor location (or aviary) the better. For flying in wind I personally like using a harness for that on a windy day so the bird can get the feel of how to deal with it without being blown away. (Here’s Carly on an extremely windy day practicing.)

Secondly, those who want to comment under the guise of a false identity may want to consider methods other than pseudonyms and fake email addresses. The odds that three different commenters on this blog site (say, for example, “Dave,” “Ron,” and “Joe”) would randomly have the same address, even if they were all on AOL and all in the same region of the country, are more than 4 billion to one, going by the way AOL assigns addresses. When you add in the fact that IP addresses are generally recycled back to the same computer whenever possible, the odds are even slimmer. But then I guess 4 billion in one things do happen once every 4 billion times or so.

Comments have been closed on this thread since they are getting very off topic and rambly.

Before restarting outside with the harness on Piper I want to build up a strong history of positive experiences. So in this phase I’m doing our usual indoor recalls with it on, giving bonus treats, and giving him dinner while wearing it.

If he happens to have a bad experience outside or gets spooked, I don’t want there to be such a strong association between outdoors and harness that he doesn’t want to put it back on.

A very different training experience than with Carly. She was calmer outside from day one, so there was very little risk of anything associated with the outdoors becoming an aversive.

This is not from day one, but day two, after coming home at age 4 months. In the background is the rest of the gang, Fergus the cat at right, Moby my homing pigeon walking on the path at the left, and Ripley the dog in the center (over Carly’s head).

* No, she is not on any kind of restraint here. She was always so calm and stuck to me it never even occurred to me that she should be on a harness (at the time I didn’t even know such a thing existed). She was also given an extremely severe clip at the store, so she literally couldn’t fly, period. In a very stiff wind it might have been possible, but we don’t get much of that here so it was easy to avoid. As her wings started to grow out, and before I learned about training, I was very fortunate that she was never inclined to take off.

For more information about using a harness, see the Complete Harness Training Series of blog posts.

The new Good Bird magazine looks like a conspiracy among friends. Hillary Hankey writes about kitchen manners (ho boy — I just realized what an odd juxtaposition of words that is), Mandy Andrea writes about getting an adult bird to make those first steps toward flying, Grace Innemee talks about training a Jackdaw (and is also the “Animal Lover” profiled), and I adapted the recall article on my web site for the magazine. Carly snuck in to one of the photos of Grace as well.

Since I have almost no photos of Carly’s indoor training, we had hoped to feature photos of Barb Saunders doing recall training with some adult birds she has taken in, many of whom were unable to fly and/or had severely damaged feathers. Unfortunately we weren’t able to locate the high-resolution versions quickly enough to meet a tight deadline before it went to press in June.

So here are the photos of Barb’s birds learning recall in her aviary and looking spectacular compared to when they arrived.

Phil the Philippine Blue-Naped Parrot doing the famous “big lean” while working on getting the first jump-flap. (For hints on that, see Mandy’s article.) Phil’s was so scraggly when he arrived that he almost had no usable wings at all.

Peaches the Moluccan doing a recall in the aviary to Barb’s hand.

Ronnie the Galah flying to Barb, just learning and on a roll that day!

Fred the Bare-eyed Corella learning to fly down. One of my favorite all-time photos. He was a wild man when Barb first got him and he’s become a great trained flyer.

The article is here, but you should really go get the whole magazine at Good Bird Inc. if you aren’t already a subscriber. (It may be a day or two before the new issue is linked.)

This is from the recall article, and very funny in light of the recent posts about recall vs flight skills:

Also, when teaching flight skills and recall (they’re not the same thing), sometimes it can be necessary to work on each separately. You can do one whole session of easy recalls, just to get and keep that behavior well trained. Then do another later when you work some of the more difficult skills.

Notice I didn’t say you can train one but not the other, or “decide which one you want NOW.” You can use one daily recall training session to really push the skills, and another at slightly lower difficulty to work on the very fast snappy response. The two complement each other very well. There is absolutely no need to neglect recall training to teach flight skills, or vice versa.

Barb and her birds and aviary will be featured in an upcoming blog post.

(Note: the photo in the article of Daphne should read Ducorps Cockatoo, and credited just to Barb.)

The following are comments regarding my post about training flight skills vs recall skills. Jim Dawson is an avian biologist at the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum in Tuscon. He states that “a trainer overly focused on ‘recall’ will never let a bird truly explore its wings.” He also points out that birds naturally fledge with a type of A-B recall, gradually increasing their flight skills along with their confidence, under the supervision of their parents. It is that type of supervised, controlled skill-building that I prefer to use with my own birds, and which is typically used by professional trainers (ask around).

UPDATE: This discussion originated with someone’s assertion that a new trainer with an adult bird who was just being introduced to outdoor flying had to choose between focusing on allowing the bird to learn flight skills and training recall. My position applies to any bird who was raised by humans indoors, whether newly weaned or adult. I do not condone anyone inexperienced in hand-rearing and weaning baby birds to experiment with replacing a bird’s natural parents or a qualified breeder. Please see the guest post by Wendy Craig for details.

Nicely written — We find ourselves bounded by the ways that we think about flight. Our birds thus end up equally constrained. This blog touches on some of the false labels we put on behaviors.

Instead we need to think about how wild birds fledge and learn to fly competently. With all the written resources and video out there about wild birds, there really is no excuse any longer for not understanding natural fledging (all the way to strong skilled flight outside).

Recall is part of fledging naturally — babies don’t leave the cavity until parents refuse to go to cavity to feed them. Babies’ first flights are to the parents to get food. It’s parallel to recall to a person. It has to be done right away and without much food restriction. They are out for supervised, short periods and are not left at liberty ever. I am very much against any form of at liberty flying, even though people like Chris Shank do it very well.

The youngsters develop quickly and their skills keep pace with the final growth and hard-penning of their sails. Panic flights happen when a bird has the hardware (developed wings and some muscle) to fly high and far but is lacking the software (confidence and learned skills) to handle flight. A young bird fledging doesn’t have the hardware yet to go far. By the time they do, they’ve flown quite a bit and have the mental skills in place.

I agree with you that recall and skills have to happen simultaneously. I don’t agree with a sink-or-swim idea about flight. I don’t agree that putting a bird outside without a solid recall is the way to do it.

A to B recall is only the very start of the process. The point is to increase the skill level of the flights as the bird develops physically and mentally. The practice A-B flights are shaped into loops, and the loops are shaped into larger loops, then higher. Eventually the bird starts exploring dives and other maneuvers, and flights become longer and and require a great deal of stamina. But the goal at all times is to maintain a balance of control and freedom with the bird, so that they can explore their own limits without excessive risk. When dealing with an indoor, human-raised bird, we are the only ones who can provide that balance and allow time for mental growth (confidence outdoors, “thinking on the wing”) as well as physical growth (flight skills).

Note: Chris Shank is a long-time trainer who started out in the marine mammal world, and conducts week long workshops on training and flight at Cockatoo Downs in Oregon. Chris recently stated about at-liberty flying:

I have flown cockatoos in this manner. However, I do NOT promote that form of flying in any way now. It is an unsafe and reckless way to fly one’s companion parrot. (29 July 2009)

When we are dealing with a bird who is going outdoors for the first time, whether as a youngster or an adult, it is a good recall that enables us to maintain control over the pace and difficulty of the skills being practiced.

Regarding a suggestion from a “recall optional” proponent that the method of early training I advocate needs to undergo “peer review”… well … if there even were such a thing for publications in the bird training world, in this case it would kind of be reinventing the wheel. This type of flight/recall training is the industry standard. Descriptions of the process I used with Carly for early flight training can also be found in two articles in Good Bird Magazine (links here), a publication reviewed and edited by Barbara Heidenreich. (Not the same as peer review, but in the companion parrot world it’s the best we have at the moment. Barbara is a past president of IAATE, and training consultant with many zoos, as well as an active advocate for companion parrot training.) Most all of my training strategies that are not routine practice are discussed with one or more professional trainers/behaviorists before and during the process, and well before writing about them. I strongly encourage others to do the same and not rely on internet chat groups as a sole source of information.

In addition, because of such a need for training information to be somehow “vetted,” the newly formed IAATE Companion Parrot Committee was set up for just that purpose. Articles posted at the site will have undergone peer review by members of the committee as well as the IAATE board of directors.

For more information:

• Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum and their acclaimed Raptor Free Flight program.
• Chris Shank’s Cockatoo Downs

The idea that one has to work on either flight skills or recall skills with a new flyer is an odd one. The two training tasks are so complementary. Doing controlled flights under your cue is how a bird can build up confidence along with skill, and those three elements — good recall, skill, and confidence — are what makes a good outdoor or indoor flyer.

They need all three to fly safely, and it doesn’t make sense to ignore one to work on another. If you neglect the recall training, every time you allow latency you are training the bird that it’s OK to ignore your cue. If you don’t gradually increase the skill level of the recalls, you risk the bird becoming bored with the training and not progressing physically.

The only time these elements come into conflict is if you’re trying to move too fast. If recall needs work, you can do that at whatever the bird’s skill level is, and do lots of repetitions. The reps improve recall, increase overall confidence, and can be done while gradually pushing the skill level. Carly’s first outdoor flying consisted of A-B flights between me and a perch, increasing in distance; short loops away and back to me, increasing the diameter; A-B recalls flying down from tree branches, increasing in height; and targeting to me through a tree (combination of climbing, hanging, dropping, flying) to learn how to descend if she landed too high for her flying skills. These can be done in a systematic way if the bird has a good recall and the confidence with it’s skill level that you can maintain an outdoor training session without flyoffs, refusing to come down from trees, or panicking.

For a companion parrot, being outside with poor recall and/or low confidence just increases the probability that it will panic or get into a situation that is beyond its skill level. These are not parrots who were raised outdoors by parents in a nest in the wild. They are not used to everything the outdoors presents.

Putting a bird in a situation that is beyond its abilities and forcing it to essentially “learn or else” and become desensitized to its own fear is one of the worst training strategies there is if you are trying to base the relationship on trust and positive interactions. It’s called flooding.

UPDATE: Apparently those claiming it was necessary to make a choice between training flight skills and recall agree with my point (from public Freeflight group):

Yes doing controlled flights is ONE way to build up the birds confidence and flight skills.

So, if you can do it that way, why encourage an unnecessary choice between recall and skills, which is more risky for the bird?

I urge anyone considering freeflying their companion parrot to consider this subsequent statement as well, before using the unfledged baby or “just let ‘em fly” approach:

Recall is extremely useful but is not required to fly birds out doors. — Chris Biro

and ask yourself if you’re comfortable taking this attitude with a valued companion.

That statement alone says enough for me to close the book on anything coming from this source.

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.

I had an unexpected breakthrough tonight with Piper on the harness. If you’ve been following the blog you know that Piper developed a dislike of his previous harness which had an over-the-head loop. So we stopped using it and have been training a new design (shown here). It’s been slow going, but we were to the point where he would walk up to the end of his perch, have me put the strap around his neck and fasten it, and put the belly strap under one wing and through the back strap. We’ve been doing this for awhile, and whenever he showed any sign of wanting it off, off it came. So tonight, after a very lazy day, I went to do our usual short session before our dinner time recall training, and we got to the usual point. He seemed very keen on his sprouted sunflower seed treats, and not paying much attention to the harness, so I decided to take it a step further and go for the strap under his other wing. That went fine. So I gave him big bonuses — handful of sprouted seeds, and he still was fine. So then I fastened the belly strap also, and gave him another handful of sprouts. Still fine! I kept feeding him his sprouts for several minutes, while carrying him around on his harness.

This surprised me but it shows how you just have to go with the flow of what the bird is presenting you. If an opportunity shows itself, take it. And if you are making big breakthroughs, give big bonuses! (Heck, even on little breakthroughs I give big bonuses.) But tonight I gave him almost his whole dinner while on the harness. My plan is to keep doing this for the next week or so: harness training combined with his whole dinner.

Here he is while eating dinner out of my hand (sorry for the blur — trying to work iPhone with one hand while feeding!)

This comes at a very good time, because he has become very interested in exploring the outdoors now (trying to follow me out the front door) and getting quite relaxed walking at the beach. So I was planning to start working A-B recalls on the harness at the beach this week.

So of course this warranted a celebration. Witness the fate of probably the last surviving blood orange of the season in southern California:

Training note: Piper is being trained at at-lib weight. His indoor recall is excellent, more reliable even than Carly’s. He is just over one year old, and it is not recommended to restrict weight on parrots less than a year old. His weight range now is only slightly higher than when he arrived at 4 months old, and he is in good condition from flying a lot indoors, so this is a good range to work with. His response to training does not warrant any change. Acclimation to the outdoor environment is something that can be done without weight reduction, as it is an entirely separate issue than food motivation. Comfort with the environment is one of the major elements in the list of factors that should be considered when training a new behavior, and it is far up the list from weight reduction.

My position with regards to outdoor training is that you go at the pace the bird himself sets, whether that is a matter of flight skills, recall response, comfort with the environment, or eagerness to fly in the first place. I am doing this for the enrichment and benefit of Piper. I’m sure Carly would love to have him as a flying companion, but first and foremost, they enjoy each other as indoor companions, which is where they spend the vast majority of their time. I feel no need at all to push the pace of training. African Greys can live to be 40-70 years old. Piper is 16 months!

Complete Harness Training Series.

As a follow up to my post on freeflight training for companion parrots, I would like to share links to a couple of articles that describe the process NEI uses for their birds. The first is an article by Deb Stambul, who attended the second level NEI workshop where they learn hands-on with new NEI birds. It should be stressed that although they are new freeflyers, they have been in the program working with professional trainers for a long time before this one-week workshop, have excellent flight skills in huge aviaries, and have already worked on recall training in those protected environments. This is the part where they make the transition to the open outdoors.

Learning How Professionals at NEI Train Birds to Fly Outdoors Safely

The second is an article that appeared in World Parrot Trust’s Psittascene magazine a few years ago, in which Steve Martin of NEI describes how involved the process is and what he expects from trainers.

To Fly or Not to Fly?

Fanny Schutte training a Scarlet Macaw at NEI’s 2009 workshop.

Chris Shank also does freeflight workshops at Cockatoo Downs every year or so, demonstrating recall training and also featuring guest speakers like Susan Friedman. I’ll try to write about that in an future post.

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.