Free flight training for rehomed birds
By Bianca Pretorius
Tom is a sun conure rescued early in July 2020 from the estate of a late hobbyist breeder in Cape Town. He went into foster care with one of our Western Cape team members, Bianca, who instantly fell in love with his sweet nature and decided that he was there to stay. Shortly afterward, Tom started his free flight journey at his new home. Bianca immediately realized that Tom was a natural at flying and they progressed very quickly through his training. He had his first official free flight on 30 September – in other words, it took about 3 months of training before Bianca could start flying him off his harness.
So, the question is why didn’t it take long? After all, one would expect free flight training to be a long and tedious process, even more so for a mature bird like Tom.
One of for that can be that he bonded reasonably quickly to his new mom. He was a pet in the past and he spent the last few months/years (the exact period of time is unknown) in an outdoor aviary where he could develop his flight skills. This is important to note because when you’re training an adult parrot for free flight, they have less brain capacity to focus on flying in combination with outdoor navigation in comparison to a baby bird.
Thus, when they are flying, they are so focused on doing just that and can’t even hear you calling them – so then they often just keep flying in a straight line. You have to practice recall often so that they can form those dominant action patterns; when they are out flying outdoors, they can focus on navigation, i.e. getting back to you, instead of only concentrating on the physical act of flying. When Tom was in that aviary, he already formed those dominant action patterns. Therefore, he already knew how to fly – Bianca just had to give him the opportunity to do so and practice recall. The best places to practice recall and flying in loops is open indoor and enclosed large outdoor spaces, like a living room, batting nets, or a school hall.
Tom transitioned fairly quickly onto a healthy diet after having been fed mostly seeds in his previous home. He was very motivated to work for his favorite treat, sunflower seeds. It was not presented in his daily meals at all, so it had a very high value. He also learned from Ayo, the other parrot that was free flight trained in the house, and he caught onto recall very quickly by following the example. Another benefit of him having spent so much time in an aviary environment is that he had been desensitized to the outdoors, which is very important for free flight.
He did not have a lot of behavioural issues and those which he did present were fairly easy to work through.
Bianca had already trained a bird for free flight and was familiar with the process, which streamlined things for both her and Tom.
In general, Tom was just an easy bird to train. Not all birds are like that: it can take anywhere from a few months to over a year. Even birds trained from a young age can take many months before they are ready to fly off the harness. It all depends on the individual bird, their history, and their personality.
What birds are recommended for free flight?
In general, colourful, loud, big birds are recommended. Macaws make excellent candidates for that very reason. If you want to fly a smaller bird, sun conures or the smaller macaw species are the best choices, but it is recommended to fly them in a flock for safety reasons. It is very possible to fly other types of parrots, but they are just generally more risks associated with that.
Naturally, larger birds are safer from predators than smaller ones and it is easier to see them when they fly far away from you – the same counts for colourful parrots. An African Grey or smaller parrot can also easily be mistaken for pigeons, so predators are more likely to attempt to catch them.
Loud birds are easier to hear from far away, and if they get lost you can easily locate them by their contact calls/screams.
It is very possible to teach a rehomed or adult parrot free flight if they are physically able to, bonded to you, and willing to train and fly. If you put in the time to properly train them, have professional help, and take it slow when it comes to introducing difficult areas to fly in, anything can be achieved. It is important to remember to teach them how to descend from high environments such as trees and desensitize them to flying in different weather conditions.
Bianca trained her parrots under the guidance of Chase Watkin-Jones, the only professional free flight trainer in South Africa. More information about the subject can be found on his Facebook page, www.facebook.com/gonefreeflying. Chase has recently released a free flight training course with over 70+ training videos. You can enroll for this course on his website: https://gonefreeflying.com/
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