Free Flight

[Solo]

When I get my back patio enclosed in avian netting I will be excited to see her fly (somewhat freely). Never in the open though. I don't even feel comfortable having her out on harness for very long and my eyes are always towards the sky. We have such a huge population of predators here that I don't think it's feasible.

 

[Mekaisto]

A bit off topic, but what is bird fitness training? I've googled and searched this forum but can't find anything.

Sorry, I think it might be a falconry term, I get mixed up between parrots and falcons a bit

Basically when I say fitness training, I mean exercises specifically designed to increase a bird's fitness. For instance, flying a parrot from a perch to your hand 10 metres is fine, 20 metres is better, but at the end of the day it's still just horizontal flying - easy!
Flying a bird from the ground vertically up to a perch or your hand, or flying vertically down from your hand to the ground is much harder, and requires a lot more fitness. Doing this is called 'vertical jumping', and is done by a lot of falconers to keep their birds in shape when they're not flying much.

 

[AJBirds]

Thanks Mekaisto!

 

[SoCalWendy]

Kiwi flys free inside the house, but not outside. No way, we have several Hawks near by always looking for food. She'd be easy pickings.

 

[Shayne]

I was volunteering at a large breeder once and he had free flighted birds. One of his greenwings sat in a tree and decided to stay there. So after a minute of calling it he said 'Oh well it will come back when it wants too'. So we walked back to the barn and sure enough the bird came soaring in over our heads and back to his perch.

I've never seen someone so relaxed about one of his birds not returning. But then again he's been doing it a long time and has a lot of birds. About 120 including about 60 hynacinths.

 

[Birdman666]

I was volunteering at a large breeder once and he had free flighted birds. One of his greenwings sat in a tree and decided to stay there. So after a minute of calling it he said 'Oh well it will come back when it wants too'. So we walked back to the barn and sure enough the bird came soaring in over our heads and back to his perch.

I've never seen someone so relaxed about one of his birds not returning. But then again he's been doing it a long time and has a lot of birds. About 120 including about 60 hynacinths.

One of the things you realize early on... if they don't want to, and you try and force them to? They fly off on you... THAT is when you lose them.

If they are in a tree on your property, just hanging out, and don't feel like it at the moment. You know where they are. AND MACAWS THAT SIT FOR TOO LONG WITHOUT ATTENTION WILL ALWAYS SEEK IT OUT! IT'S JUST HOW THEY ROLL...

Free flighting is not for the timid. I'm not timid, and I still don't do it anymore. Too many things can go wrong. And I love them too much to watch them die, or wonder what happened to them.

 

[1500]

So the previous owners of Bonny (yes I know I need to do an update post) routinely let her free out side their house (in a subdivision close to the middle of town). Allowed her to play in the sprinklers and fly above the house. Now they had weened her, and by the time I took her in she was only 2. But she had ZERO training, and was owned by people that had never owned a bird before, let alone a Macaw (3 months latter and I still don't understand how they didn't kill her).

An animals bond can be very strong, but if they had continued to do this it would have just been a matter of time before they lost her.

I will not allow her to free flight again, way too many Hawks (have a nest above my house) and eagles in my area to ever trust that. Harness training will happen, but have a long way to go before that happens.

 

[Birdman666]

Honestly, Maggie is fully flighted, and goes everywhere with me. I used to free fly her.

These days she doesn't seem to have much interest in flying. Except down from the tree TO ME, or down from her cage to play the "death from above" game with Sarah.

Mostly she is content to just hang out on her portable playstand and interact with people when we go out. Attention is better than flying, apparently...

Who'd 've thunk that, from a macaw, eh?!