How we teach parrots to fly outside???

[Mare]

I checked my email today and Bird Tricks sent me this post, "How we teach parrots to fly outside". I have seen so many posts about how easy it is to free fly your bird and so many are pictured where there are NO trees, not even a bush and it's a no brainer that your bird is going to land on the highest thing around!

I have a hard time with this kind of training. I'm no professional but in my experience your bird better be bonded to you, if not, you are taking a bigger chance, a huge risk of losing your bird. I agree with recall training, to me it means a bonding experience and that is safer than anything, in my opinion.

[Turquoise]

I agree with you completely Mare and you have certainly proved you have what it takes with Amigo. You can tell he is totally bonded to you in the photos of him flying back home I have seen.

I have watched some of Bird Tricks videos & read some of their article, but I was not impressed with them to some degree. It just wasn't what I was looking for in advice & help when I first got my macaws.

Although I do have two macaws who I will never have to worry about losing when taking them outside, I'd love to one day be able to take Roscoe out and free fly him. He is very bonded to me now, but he is still way too young & full of himself to be trusted that much yet. In a few years after he gets the terrible twos & raging hormones out of hid system, I will think seriously about working with him on free flying. Until then I will enjoy Amigo & his free flight stories! :th_biggrin:

[Blancaej]

I agree Mare! You really need to know your bird and be very bonded before attempting anything like this!

[Honesty]

We love hearing your stories about Amigo :) If I took Codie outside, he would be off in a jiffy:(

The bond that you and Amigo have is fantastic :)

[Mare]

I guess I was just venting, thanks for listening. :). Free flight shouldn't be taken lightly and it SHOULD scare you! You could easily lose your bird, I know this now and I knew it when first starting him out. It took a very long time for me to start feeling comfortable with what I was doing with allowing him to fly like this. Our bond became stronger through the process of him learning to fly. Amigo seems, to me, to be, (I hate to say this), smarter than Sassy. I love the Sassy girl to pieces but she is such a ding-a-ling, I would never try this with her!

[ShellyBorg]

I was at a park where they where free flying birds here in CA. It was amazing to watch, but the horror stories some of the trainers told about losing there birds really makes you think twice. One guy lost a Hyacinth to a lose dog that caught his boy on the wing! The bird was flying into a recall when this dog ran out of the parking lot and jumped a good 6 feet up to grab the bird by the wing. Before he or the dog owner could reach them, the dog shook the macaw to death. The dog owner was beside her self. She never saw the bird and the dog had jumped over her shoulder and out the drives window as soon as she had stopped. She never had time to grab her dog or stop what happened.

[Mare]

OMG, Shelly, that is such a tragically sad story!! Definitely something to think about while flying your bird in those areas! Thanks for sharing.

[Blancaej]

OMG! That is awful. Reminds us that we all need to be on alert when our birds are outside.

[Bokkapooh]

Bird Tricks is a bad site. I wouldn't trust the Womach brothers about anything. Theyre liars and con artists.

[Mare]

Mercedez, you are MORE vocal than I!! I love it! Yes, I have to agree this site is questionable and they want money to teach you--on line, correct? Do they have gatherings, where people can come to learn, in person?

[Bokkapooh]

Dave and Chet Womach actually stole and are selling stolen material. Theyre thieves and bad people.

They are bad people.:(

[Mare]

Yep! I have to agree. Every time I get an email from them, it has something to do with my concerns on something that I had posted. Weird?! Coincidence?!

[Turquoise]

I read something recently on another forum about them & their not so honest business. I didn't really like their DVD I got from them when I first got back into keeping parrots again. It did nothing to help me with learning to be a better parront. If I'd known about them then, I would never have wasted my money on it.

Thanks Bokka for sharing this with us. This needs to be said plenty of times to warn new people to not buy the videos or at least check them out before deciding if they want to give them their money.

[plax]

I was at a park where they where free flying birds here in CA. It was amazing to watch, but the horror stories some of the trainers told about losing there birds really makes you think twice. One guy lost a Hyacinth to a lose dog that caught his boy on the wing! The bird was flying into a recall when this dog ran out of the parking lot and jumped a good 6 feet up to grab the bird by the wing. Before he or the dog owner could reach them, the dog shook the macaw to death. The dog owner was beside her self. She never saw the bird and the dog had jumped over her shoulder and out the drives window as soon as she had stopped. She never had time to grab her dog or stop what happened.That's about the most devastating thing I can imagine! Reading your post brought a tear to my eye and makes me question the worth-of-risk factor of outside free flight training for any parrot guardian. Some may consider the Hyacinth tragedy an isolated incident. Be that as it may, there are often a great many potentially deadly dogs in and around open public areas. I'm unable to purge the horrible mental imagery from my mind now :(

[ShellyBorg]

Sorry Plax :( So often people see free flighted birds and are all for it. If any one makes the decision to free flight they need to now the risks. Even a flock of black birds or starlings can chase a bird off, never to be recovered.

[plax]

Sorry Plax :( So often people see free flighted birds and are all for it. If any one makes the decision to free flight they need to now the risks.Yes. And it's they (the people) who are assuming the risks for and upon the pet birds... the birds have limited to no awareness about many of the dangers involved and are virtually unable to opt out :(

[alnoble89]

I love to see Amigo and think he is awesome. I could never free fly with my guys as I just don't have anywhere safe and I don't think they could handle it. Well they can free fly in my house. You should post more pictures, I just always look at yours several times because it is so awesome. I have never looked into birdtricks because i had heard they were kind of shady so I am glad I didn't after reading this.

[Mare]

Amanda, not everyone has the semi-safe outdoor space to do this. Space where you know your bird isn't going to get hit by a car or taken down by a dog and these places are hard to find. There are all kinds of dangers for a free flying bird regardless of where you are. There ARE risks and although many would disagree with me, these are the risks I'm willing to take to allow my beloved bird his freedom to be what he was born to be, (somewhat, anyway). I am not advocating outdoor free flight and most birds would not be a candidate for this, Amigo was and so, is.

[ShellyBorg]

Mare I think it amazing that you can allow him the freedom. Most of the tragic stories I have heard is where people take there bird to a unknown area.

[Mare]

This is so true, Shelly! I would have a real hard time cutting Amigo loose in an area that he was unfamiliar with.

[Luthien]

To me I would never free fly my bird outside. Even if your bird is seriously bonded to you all it takes is something that comes by and scares it and you've lost your friend. I would rather use a very long tether and have my bird safe

[Mare]

Hi Luthien, it takes more than a bond..it takes a confidence that you know your bird well enough, it takes guts (not only on your part but your bird's) and it takes a whole lot of luck on that particular day :).

I understand your fear and most pet birds aren't cut out for this.

This IS what they were born to do, fly, fly freely. Unfortunately, not always.

[Shanlung]

Dave and Chet Womach actually stole and are selling stolen material. Theyre thieves and bad people.

They are bad people.:(


I checked my email today and Bird Tricks sent me this post, "How we teach parrots to fly outside". I have seen so many posts about how easy it is to free fly your bird and so many are pictured where there are NO trees, not even a bush and it's a no brainer that your bird is going to land on the highest thing around!

I have a hard time with this kind of training. I'm no professional but in my experience your bird better be bonded to you, if not, you are taking a bigger chance, a huge risk of losing your bird. I agree with recall training, to me it means a bonding experience and that is safer than anything, in my opinion.



What I think of Birdtricks


On birdtricks.com and bozos ([Users must be registered and logged in to view attached photos or hyperlinks])

[spiritbird]

Thought some of you may be interested in reading this article. [Users must be registered and logged in to view attached photos or hyperlinks]

Most especially this statement: To teach free flying in the outdoors requires a very skilled, and experienced, trainer who has a mentor to help them along. Even then, in most situations birds are trained indoors or in a netted enclosure before ever setting wing outside.

Lets say we have a person who is new to birds and wants that bird to fly outside. Mare and Shanlung what would your advice be?

[Mare]

Nobody trained me to fly my bird, no one except Amigo. If you don't feel it..don't do it. That's the only advice I have.

[Shanlung]

Thought some of you may be interested in reading this article. [Users must be registered and logged in to view attached photos or hyperlinks]

Most especially this statement: To teach free flying in the outdoors requires a very skilled, and experienced, trainer who has a mentor to help them along. Even then, in most situations birds are trained indoors or in a netted enclosure before ever setting wing outside.

Lets say we have a person who is new to birds and wants that bird to fly outside. Mare and Shanlung what would your advice be?



A person new to birds?
and want the bird to fly outside?

So scary that I shudder to think of that. That person should focus on getting the bird to live with himself/herself first in healthy environment.
That person has not even reached the first base as the rest of you folks here. In that you folks rather die than to risk the loss of your birdie.
When that person got to that stage, then I can talk a bit more. If that person want something that fly outside and return to him/her, get a drone which is very much cheaper and easier to manage.

I went to the link you mentioned above. I know most of those key speakers. I like to think that they know me too even if I think of myself just a student with more to learn than myself being an expert with nothing more to learn.

The problem with going to experts for their guidance is that once they been through a course, they think they know it all and know more of you and your bird even though ALL birds are unigue with different temperaments.
And so with their caregivers.

It is like knowing to make money from stocks and shares will be to buy low and sell high, and sending those that attend those financial stockmarket courses to do just that.
While what the course so called teaches can be true, the real world can be very different.

By going to those courses, you relinquish your knowledge of your particular birdie to their knowledge , as if they know more than you on your own birdie. And come on, flying indoors and netted enclosure cannot even approximate outdoors at all, unless the netted enclosure is humongous. I wrote in some details of what I had done. Doing that in indoors and netted enclosure is like swimming in a swimming pool as compared to swimming in the sea with waves and tidal surges that cannot even be approximated. A swimmer who can swim in a swimming pool would have died in waves and currents. I think I wrote clearly in the thread I started as to my footsteps by footsteps that I taken.

None of that taught to me or mentored to me other than my deciding to prepare my birdie to meet and face all outside challenges prior to free flights.
And I like Mare used the most important teacher. The very birdie him/herself and not an external third party who having been through a course know all about you and your birdie.

One other aspect is that I have a mental connection with the birdie. I cannot even prove that to my wife so it is ok if you all do not accept that.

Everytime before I do a recall outside (or inside) , I had a strong mental image of the bird launching off and flying to me. My wife laughed at that and demanded I prove that.
So I told her that I would do that mental recall and Riam flew to me from her . She then said Riam was going to do that anyway.

So I decided I needed to show some sign as to when the recall was made.
I then told her I would raise the right thumb to show her when I made that mental recall and then my wife said it was the sudden lifting of the thumb that got Riam to fly to me.
I then told her I raise the left last finger to show her when I made that mental recall and then my wife said it was the lifting of that last finger that got Riam to fly to me.

I did the only possible thing which was to tell my wife "yes dear" and reverted to using voice as well to call Riam.

The most important teacher is your birdie.
Not anyone or any organisation that tell you otherwise.
By all means, listen to what they got to say. But if they say their rules are the only rules and that you must listen only to them and that they can give you the only road to the Promised Land , my advise will be to walk away as fast as you can.

All that said, Mare and I and those on that list like Steve Martin and Pamela and Chris not the only one that fly the birdies outside. There are many others.
I think I was the catalyst for many of them especially in Taiwan where for years thousands see me with Tinkerbell during a time in early 2000 where almost all parrots were kept clipped.
I told them to listen to their birdies. They did. When I find those videos, I will place them in the thread I started. People in other countries such as Thailand and Indonesia as well.
Of which many of them being to my site and webpages. In fact, much more non English speakers been to my pages then people from English speaking world, about twice or three times as many.

Never mind about the rest of you. I think even Mare will be stunned.

[Tia]

I allow Tia free-flight indoors only. I would never think of her free flying outdoors. Where I live there is a breeding pair of Redtail hawks, and see a falcon or two every day. I have seen the falcon appear out of thin air, to snatch a dove. I have to keep reminding my elderly mom every time she comes to visit with her Cockatiel, not to be outdoors with her bird.

[Mare]

No doubt about it, free flying your bird outside..is SCARY!