 You see a pet parrot fly off the end of a cliff Screaming that celebratory scream twitching and going upside down and jinking and having a great time and flying back up and landing on you breathless and Smiling as parrots do That's what it's for Everyone my name is Marlene McCohen and this is George and we have Bird tricks here today. Hey, what's up everybody? I want to tell you guys honestly why they're on my channel today Because I think it's really important that you guys know that I will seek out the best information that I possibly Can for you guys and sometimes it doesn't come from me So if you guys aren't familiar with their channel, you want to check it out bird tricks. It's on YouTube They also have a website and they Specialized in free-flying Parrots, which is a beautiful thing. So why are they here today because I was a little bit worried that I might accidentally give out now a misconception about free flight and that's just how YouTube works sometimes you say certain things and You weren't committed to everything about it and I just thought that I want to bring you guys the right information So why not go to who I think and view as the experts on this subject and we'll get to that myth in a minute So I want to introduce you to this video the top myths about Free-flying so I'm gonna ask them your most asked questions about free flight And if you want to know anything else leave it in the comments. I'm so excited Today, okay, so I'm gonna be honest So the the reason that I came to is because I did a video It wasn't about free flight at all, but I had mentioned that it's probably better to free fly with baby birds and The main thing was that I didn't feel like any of our birds were candidates for free flight and to top it off that we might not be candidates for free flight Not that I don't admire it and love it, but I thought maybe I'd come to you and you could tell us Yeah, yeah, well we tell everybody, you know free flight is definitely not for everybody But it's for every bird and so if if it can fit in your lifestyle in any way and you can do it safely and responsibly We 100% encourage it if it doesn't fit in your lifestyle because of a matter of factors then that's okay You know, we don't we're not like an all or nothing You have to free fly your bird, but it's so amazing as you got to experience too It's so amazing to see these birds do what they were designed to do No, a lot of people don't understand their respiratory system doesn't even work in full capacity until they're in flight There's so much about free flight from just their overall health the beauty the fact that it's freedom It's what they were meant to do. It's definitely something that we're passionate about and really where it takes your relationship level Like I've always been able to tell our students when we coach them through free flight Like I know you think you have an amazing relationship with your bird right now But you will be floored at where it can take it through this training because it's so much fun for both the person and the bird And you literally grow together and that's really where the magic and the transformation is for me when coaching people through this I think I understand you because just when my bird lands on me in the house Like it's the biggest like compliment and just it's just beautiful so I can only imagine watching them outside Yeah, you know kind of our situation in our house and you are familiar with some of our birds. Do you met Vinny? Do you think we or any of our birds knowing that they're rescues some of them? We don't know how old they are Rockies 27 years old, right 26 or 27 George is not a parrot trainer What do you think? Yeah, you know, we don't work with parrot trainers. We work with normal people Okay. Um, yeah, I was gonna add to that. It's easier to work with normal people because there's no barrier or predetermined misconceptions or false beliefs that we have to break through Those the people that that our parrot trainers are the hardest people to get through and we work people that are like I don't know. I got this thing. I I didn't know it could fly and we teach them how to free fly That's most rewarding. Yeah, we like creating trainers out of people because that's really what you have to become in order to do free flight successfully And safely that is really what we look for, you know Ideally with older birds the first thing we have to look at is just they have to go through a veterinary exam to determine that There's no sort of arthritis or underlying Issue physically that's keeping the bird from being able to fly But if all that checks out, there's no reason that rocky couldn't be Transformed into a free flying bird if you made the commitment and you wanted to do the training So we're gonna come in are we talking about that? Good question like where we where we start with something like this like how long does it take and So let me jump back to the how long does it take because the other part of what you're asking is Is you kind of eluded like a lot of people believe you need to get a baby bird Or you may be accidentally said it that was interpreted that you need to start with a baby bird The reality is you can start with a baby bird and it is so much easier And it affords you to make a ton of mistakes But there will be a point where those mistakes are going to catch up with you and you're going to lose a bird Unless you get the proper training and understand it with a baby bird you could have it trained in six weeks to fly outside I mean, it's a piece of cake. You're you're relying on what the bird does naturally Using your in-home situation and we're talking 20 to 30 minutes a day you could have a baby doing it in six months The other side of what you are asking is, you know, are your bird's candidates I think as long as they don't have health issues every bird's a candidate Even if they've never flown before there's different exercises There's ways that you can try to encourage the bird to take flight by not forcing it but actually encouraging it And it doesn't matter if it's 26 years old if it's 80 years old Or with the case that that jamie just recently did on our youtube channel with the story of morgan This bird was had a deformity. Yeah, so morgan was actually born with a or hatch with a foot defect So one of her feet just went right out the side. She had a toe amputated She couldn't even step up So if you think about a bird who if I came to you and I said, oh, I have a macaw Hatched with a foot defect Can't even perch on my hand Doesn't know how to step up wasn't fledged properly didn't learn to fly at the right age has been through about six homes Do you think it's a good free flight candidate? And I trained her in four months For outdoor free flight, you know, another one is storm who is a 45 year old amazon parrot incredibly obese Was on a diet unfortunately of hamburger meat because the owner didn't know any better And that bird was transformed in 45 days to be an outdoor flyer So a lot of the times on the outside it doesn't look like a good candidate for free flight But on the inside if you really put forth that effort Any bird can be transformed as long as it doesn't have a physical disability to be able to like Basically making it so that it cannot fly like it hurts him if he does Yeah So what you're hearing here is every bird's a good candidate if they're physically able to like if if A human being is physically able to walk they should walk if they're not physically able to they're a terrible candidate for walking Same thing with birds if they can't physically do it And so that's the approach we've we've taken and it has been so rewarding It is so amazing to put your training to the test when that bird comes back to you outside for the very first time In fact, it's funny. We're filming this in vegas our very first free flight was with our african gray crecy In vegas and I still remember that magical feeling. We're holding on and we're like, oh boy Here we go. I'm getting goosebumps thinking about it and I let go and it's like Do you trust me and the bird took flight and landed on jamie and did the same back to me and I mean, we were on cloud nine. It's such a magical feeling. It is it's it's What they're they're meant to do and as far as how long it takes because you ask like what kind of time commitment Is this this really varies bird to bird and person to person because how you interact with rocky ear macaw Is different from how marlene interacts with her galavini So how we would work with you is completely different than how we might train marlene So that really plays a huge role and for example, we had some people that we worked with a blue thread macaw It took two months. It was really quick. It felt amazing We just worked with some students that had a military macaw that took three months Just wham bam out. That's fast in our book But we've also had students that take upwards of nine months Wow And so that's when when you get into questioning your trainers or you're not really sure how to implement something or sometimes people just Hit walls and need you to actually come out in person and demo what it's supposed to look like It just kind of depends on what type of learner you are and how fast you're able to implement the information and what kind of time Restraints you have on being able to work and train your bird. It's about the person. It is exactly Yeah, like any parent. Yeah says us experts I love how you looked at each other like right? Yeah, that's what I think on real kids Within this myth comes one more question Do you have to have a special bond with the bird that you go out to freefly? Yes. Yes or no It's a type of reinforcement. So honestly, it's easier for you to flight train rocky Than marlene because it's reinforcing for rocky to come to you. So when he's just with you He's like I like this That is positive reinforcement when he's with marlene. He may not feel that way So now she has to find something that makes her of equal value to you and that's just going to make her work harder So ideally yes, you would want to work with that bond. It makes it easier But that doesn't mean that you can't create that bond through training Yeah, so you definitely don't have to start with it But in this situation We would start with you because that's where you're going to be most likely to get that initial flight And then we we're going to mention that about the initial flight several times because that is the key if the bird the moment The bird discovers that it can use flight as a means of transportation not to avoid something But as a means of transportation to get what it wants now you can flight train So in your situation that you've got a better bond That's where we would start and we work with what the bird does naturally We wouldn't have marlene start with that bird because we're less likely to get that initial flight However, once you've taught the bird that it gets a reward for flying to you We can transfer that bond over to anybody and that relationship will build You do want to have a good relationship with the bird because one It's going to happen naturally through the proper types of training and really understanding the training quadrant of positive reinforcement and negative reinforcement Positive punishment negative punishment There's all these things are happening all the time in a bird's environment And it's really key and critical to have a very firm understanding of that in free flight because A great example is with one of our students the bird flew to her because the bird You know liked her I use air fingers because I hate to assume like the bird. Oh loves me, right? But the bird to fly to her because it liked her. She's like, yeah Good job. And she's shaking the bird and trying to pet it Well, so the positive reinforcement was the the treat right and the and the fact that the bird got to come to her But then we were starting to chip away at that trust and that good bond because the bird May not like being shaken up and down It wasn't a cockatoo an umbrella might love it and blue and gold macaw probably hated it And then it definitely we had to film it in slow motion to show her trying to pet the bird the bird's like ducking away from her hand That was another plus punishment or positive punishment So you have to have a good understanding of all of that when you get into free flight And that's part of what we coach people through But the relationship that you need to have Develops as you do the training with the bird So commitment wise you would be looking at I would say minimum 30 minutes a day For and it depends on you. It depends on the bird. It depends on your work training space It depends on so many factors, but 30 minutes a day. So you're doing, you know several five minute training sessions throughout the day or a really If you're working on longer flight training, you might get a little more time because the amount of time it takes you to Walk back and forth. So at that point you're looking at repetitions, but roughly a half hour a day for six weeks to Six months and honestly with rocky because I would start where you would create an environment that he would do a lot of the training on his own So it would be kind of camouflaged as I would probably say so that one of the things that we say with older birds Is that you can set up an environment for them where they learn how to use flight as a means for transportation But they're building the muscles on their own. So it's not you actively saying rocky. I want you to fly Yet it's setting up like three foraging trees for him and they're all connected and they're all touching and he walks To get water on one food on another and his favorite toy on another And every few weeks or whatever pace you need to go up for rocky You move them further and further apart And what's gonna happen is one day he's gonna have to hop or he's gonna have to really lean to go over And the next day he's gonna learn that oh, I can just stretch and then he's eventually gonna take that hop Because he wants to get to that water or that toy And then he's going to eventually have that aha moment of using flight as a means for transportation It's gonna happen at a pace where he built those muscles and it's not painful. It's just what is that's his environment And once he learns that now he learns. Hey when I want to hang out with George when I see George I can get there. I don't have to be like George come get me off of this stand And that is going to be the breakthrough moment with rocky But a lot of that training can happen without you having to be hands-on working on building his muscle You can set up an environment for him to work on that all day by himself The key to this is you're building his confidence On his own heat you're setting up so he builds his own confidence because that is a big part of freefly You have to have a very confident bird to be able to Freefly safely that being said there's always a risk if you freefly which I'm sure we'll talk about But the other thing is Jamie mentioned Just like with humans when we work out and we haven't worked out for a while your muscles are sore Your bird's not going to have a bad association with the sore muscles Meaning you're going to flight train me there will be no negative association with you attached to that because the bird Is making the choice himself to go from tree to tree and slowly build up those flight muscles It honestly sounds to me like all the training that goes into free flight Especially if you have a bird that isn't familiar with being flighted at all That's really good training for any bird. It really is. It's just like amazing training for any bird Yeah So people can start with these kind of courses and um, even if they don't want to go outside outside You know, they can do it as a precautionary It's even great for people that want to have flighted birds inside the house But can't get control over them. I teach them how to go potty and the place that they need to go potty Yeah, why are my birds so good at going potty? I don't know They do it all the time. No, I mean like we're they're supposed to it's a natural behavior as part of it But they're so good at like they're literally so good at flying to go potty and flying back Geniuses I raise I swear Okay, so that brings us to myth number two everybody wanted to know about this. What about predators? Okay, so when we first got into free flight training we There wasn't much information out there So we wanted to dig deep and be very pessimistic for the safety of the birds. What's the worst that could happen fly off Or eaten by something So we went straight to a falconer who has since become a friend of ours I said, hey, what is the ideal situation for your birds to hunt when you want to go out? You want to catch the best thing or maybe something new this animal's not your birds not familiar with When do you go? So he explained all of those details are when the best time is for him to hunt So we don't fly our birds during those periods and there's some very simple rules that when you understand them and you abide by them It's going to prevent having not only fly offs, but it's going to prevent or minimize your exposure to predators There's also more to this. We were out in moab free flying and there was a base jumper wingsuiter So that's where you've got a you look like a flying squirrel and he's standing on a cliff And he jumps off the cliff opens his wings and he flies down the cliff and opens his parachute And I I had just done my very first guide. I'm like, okay. I gotta watch this guy Well, we end up on radio comms with him and we'd been flying the birds for a couple hours that day And I I hear him on the radio. He's like hang on guys There's a long pause he's like I'm just living this up right now. There's a bald eagle up here just soaring right next to me And it's so ironic because in a few minutes. I'm going to be soaring too Not only was it magical for him to have that moment of like, okay, this bird's free flying You know, it's a wild bird, but it's out there doing its thing He's going to be out there doing the same thing But it made us realize like, you know, we've been flying for two hours Why didn't that bald eagle come down and try to eat our birds? Well, it's because we followed our rules through talking with falconers and understanding when their optimal time is to hunt And we just don't we just simply don't fly during those times Yeah, a lot of the stuff with the predators comes down to risk management So you just need to be really smart understand what your predator birds are and what their habits are to be able to avoid Colliding with that sort of thing. So for instance, a common one is when a storm is coming in That's most likely when predator birds are stocking up because they feel weather patterns They know that they're not going to be able to hunt for maybe the next day or the next few days So they are more likely to go after something that they do not recognize to stock up for a storm So you would never ever ever want to fly before a storm And it's things like that where you learn about your predators just as much as we know about our parrots So that we can keep our parrots as safe as possible and minimize the risk as much as possible So that we make good choices for a bird So there's documented cases too of of raptors will come hawks falcons eagles That may not be the exact. I'm not a raptor expert. I do parrot behavior Yes, he's like flying dinosaur things that are carnivorous There's been documented cases of them when they get too hungry They will go after Unusual items that they're not familiar. That's where you hear like oh this hawk attacked my baby, right? Well, it's like well, it's probably been storming for four days and Four days and the bird is getting starved if you look at like an energy level on a video game that bird's about to die So it's like I'm desperate and it will be willing to risk injury At the chance to maybe eat because it's desperate and there's been documented cases of of these raptors dive bombing cattle And dying right because they are so desperate for food So Are we gonna fly when it's going to dive bomb a cattle? No way, right? And that's the really it sounds like a ridiculous story. I know but trust me look it up No, I've seen them dive bombing dogs not in real life on youtube. Yeah, but like raptors. Yeah So so it's it's uh, you want to just really understand your predator before going into that environment So what i'm hearing honestly is someone that like I feel that I am knowledgeable and really good with parrots But what i'm hearing from all this for me I would never free fly my birds without going to experts Because that information is right there is so valuable. What if people watch us? But you guys or other people and they they're naturally talented with their birds and they think it's okay Like there's a whole other wealth of information That I feel like Is in books or isn't resources like you guys that people are missing and that's why I just want to say like I brought them on my channel because I feel like I would never want to give any info without going to who I feel is You know the most valuable and even still I still think you guys need to read up every single thing And go to the most expert person you can find in your area if it's not you guys because When I start hearing all that that goes into it. It's the first thing that I think I'm like wow Yeah, yeah, and that is why you know people ask us like why don't you put out a how-to free fly And the reason that we do not do that is because every single time we've coached somebody We have never coached them the same way because people are different birds are different The situation is different. The lifestyles are completely different So you can't just say hey do a b and c and you'll you got it good You there is no like little formula to free flight. You have to work your way through it and teach the person Yeah, the other thing about that each and every single student We've had has hit a wall at some point that we go and we fly to them and do an in-home consult And it's there's only so much you can teach online and that's even like Customize one-on-one video going back and forth And and coaching them for the moment that they need so we don't go through our curriculum We go through what they need but again even with that they hit a wall And so we fly out to them and we see exactly what they're doing wrong and we fix it the challenge jumping back to an earlier question About the baby bird situation the challenge is there's a misconception with the baby bird Hey, yeah, you can have success in your first year of free flying the longer you have that bird Without getting proper training for yourself The more likely are you are to lose that bird because you're going to have a false sense of confidence based on How easy it was to train it when it was a baby But you have to there's so much you just have to learn and and obviously we suggest coaching Even if people don't go to us as coaches, um, I would say I'm almost positive We're the most expensive free flight coaches out there But so so if it's not us like I you know, hey, I don't This can't go below But there's there's a lot of reasons for it and and one of those reasons is that we commit a hundred percent to them And because of that these people become great friends at the end of it We become like family with all of our free flight students But we also require a high price because we expect a level of commitment from them if we set it too low I am not going to waste my time for somebody for a month for them to quit. That's just not my cards I don't want to do that. So keep that in mind for anybody out there who is looking for free flight What is your level of commitment? What coaches best for you again if it's not us it's somebody else that's that's not the point of of me saying this But I agree a hundred percent you need coaching I would say so because as far as I could come on my own before I took that bird outside I'd feel better. Yeah, somebody like you guys come out and yeah And like we talked about earlier you were saying do people do you just have to have a strong bond with the bird to To do this training and yes, it does help in the training, but you don't just need a strong bond It's not just about oh my bird likes me now. I can take it outside It is so little about that when you get to the point of going outside that I think most people would be shocked Yeah, I'm I agree on that. I don't get me wrong. I wasn't asking that because of that I was just saying is it gonna make it easier exactly because of that You know, I mean like it doesn't get past a few other barriers that you have to get through anyways and completely Yes, it does and I think that just a lot of people see a really good relationship Maybe the great relationship that we have with our birds and think oh well my bird loves me that much now I can take it outside and there's so many different aspects of free flight that it's not just one thing A lot of the reason that they see that relationship that we have with our parents is because of free flight It's not what didn't necessarily start that way It became that way through the trust in the bond and the training through free flight And when it comes to coaching think about this Michael Jordan arguably the best basketball player who will ever live Still had a coach So it doesn't matter like everybody. I think should put their own Pride their own ego their own perception aside and say how could I benefit from a coach? When it comes to free flight training to there's no guarantee But to increase the likelihood for a safe flight every businessman has a somebody that he looks up into Yeah for business purposes or It's critical And I love the way you guys talk about your bond because I feel the same just having my flighted birds in my house When they land on me and when they choose to come to me and it's just like oh I love it. It's it's the best feeling in the world having a bird land on you. Yeah, unless you hate birds Yeah, unless you're scared Then we don't get along in that case. It's fun to watch Then you can't be my friend. No just kidding. Um, okay, that brings us to myth number three. Yeah, we're actually getting through these Fold Thank you, George Small birds a lot of people are asking what about small birds not just with predators I know you guys touched on the predators, but just In general people are worried about small birds and I had Seen some information out there on people not recommending flying small birds at all like smaller than an african gray What do you guys have to say about yeah, so first off people do fly free fly small birds successfully What's the smallest bird you're talking about? I've seen people free flying budgies from around the world So they are doing it successfully in places Now does that mean that you should go out and get a budgie for free flight? No, if you need to evaluate when it comes back to risk management So the reality is that it's it's always about risk management every single time you go out You need to be pessimistic about what's the worst thing that could happen and you need to Look at that prepare for it and then be positive about the situation because you don't want to attract the bad crap to happen But if you have you know, you could successfully do with a budgie But the likelihood of it getting snatched out of the air is very high There is a very popular theme park that I will not mention their name that used to release pigeons At the white pigeons at the end of the night because they were homing pigeons. They go back to their cage What a brilliant idea fireworks pigeons lights all this fancy stuff And it trained the hawks that once the fireworks went there were the pigeons and it was feeding time It's like an alarm it was exactly and so now all the kids are gathered around the theme park to watch this beautiful display And there's falling pigeon parts everywhere Right, so this very highly popular theme park decided Maybe that's not the best idea for our brand And I think that people need to take that the same idea to heart When it comes to what size animal are you training and also the patterns that you Accidentally have are you always flying your parrot at the same time at the same park on the same, you know Whatever now you're training the hawks that hey these guys are coming back again And if you don't believe me man, I've I yeah, trust me It's uh, we haven't had these situations, but this is stuff that that happens Yeah, and the predator animals again, they're very routine based you can free fly any size bird So back to risk management, what's safe and you need to look at all of that for us Love flying the macaws because most predators if you follow the The guideline of when raptor or falconers hunt as long as you go opposite of that and you do it when they're not hunting You're in a pretty good window. There's obviously a lot more. This isn't a free flight course So don't go do that on your own But uh, the macaws are just so much safer for a lot of reasons one. They're huge You can see them up to a quarter mile until like with the bear eye if you have 2020 vision You can see them until about a quarter mile away So if they go out of sight at a quarter mile and you see them kind of tiring out and going down Your search starts a quarter mile circumference It doesn't mean because you saw them disappear that they're four miles out If you go four miles you're an idiot and you're going to have a lot of steps for the day But the macaws are easier. They're louder And they're bigger to see and they're you can have a more clear contact call with them As opposed to a budgie, you're not going to hear it when it's a hundred yards away And you're not going to be able to see it or enjoy it when it's a hundred yards away But the macaws to us, that's kind of like that's the best It's the strongest the safest the most reliable the most predictable body language the list goes on and on Um, and we started with an african gray because we thought that that was going to be the most difficult And she has a lot of different challenges because of their intelligence level that we have to address So not only is it size, but it's also intelligence level. Are you a capable enough trainer? I say this to everybody watching are you a capable enough trainer to address those really complex Problems that african grays and amazons are going to present because they will be four steps ahead of you All the time So that's why we started with them because we wanted to learn the most that we could And we figured if we can do it with an african gray, then we should have great success with the other birds But the end of the day I'd say the bigger the parrot the better for safety Let me ask you a personal question that some people might be wondering like you said there's always a risk Where do you weigh the The value like where do you save yourself? There's a risk some people would be like there's a risk. I'm not taking it and some people are like there's a risk But what motivates you to take that risk? What's the reward is what you're saying? I would say that out of the two of us I'm more likely to take a risk than davis. He he is my like when you know when people say hey, this is my better half No, no seriously This is my better half He makes the smarter better decisions And the reason that I feel more compelled to take the risk is because I want to see their joy And so for example, we have many free flying parrots And my favorite thing is to let them all out at the exact same time and watch the chaotic explosion of celebratory screams and flying All happen at once because it's pure joy. It is so much fun And I Love it. It's high risk to keep eyes on more birds than you have hands or fingers So is it the most is it the smartest? Is it the least risk? No that moment and it's hard to describe to somebody who doesn't have multiple birds that fly It's something you have to experience and that is why I'm more likely to push and more likely to be like Hey, could we fly the medium birds because it is higher risk? And he is way more likely to say hey, just so you know, we're not flying the gloss today Hey, just so you know, this isn't happening today and I know it's a boundary because he knows all push because How guilty do I feel bringing a macaw and a galah and only flying the macaw? I feel guilty I want to see the joy in the galah as well And so it's hard for me to reel in the right decision because I want to see the joy on that point Today was one of those days we're driving out to the flight zone and given the weather patterns yesterday I said we're not, you know, we're not going to fly bond by much, right? I knew that we wanted to do a little bit But I knew that the longer we kept her out the higher the risk we were taking So that's how we help manage the risk and sure enough as we're driving out we saw a hawk sitting on the fence post Um, you know, so we made the right decision to put away when we did and so a lot of it It's as weird as it's gonna sound is trusting that inner voice trusting your gut feeling Never question your gut feeling. It's there for a reason and it's it's Trust it and so that's one of the reasons one of the ways we we manage the risk The other side of that is taking a look at the complete opposite Everybody watching your channel. I would like to assume has a pet bird because they love them and they want the best for their bird The challenge with this is most people think the best thing for their parrot is to clip its wings So it doesn't fly into a window and break its neck That's logical I will give them that and then they think to put it in a cage Keep it safe and give them a 24 hour buffet So they don't have to work for it as we talked about in our in our last conversation for our channel Animals like to work for their food birds in the wild. What do they do? They fly around all day They look for food. They dig up. They they tear apart in the hopes of maybe Getting a meal Right and when you look at that and then you stuff a bird in a cage give a 24 hour access to food You're gonna get fatty liver disease. You're going to get fatty tumors. You're going to get Just all sorts of different obesity issues with the parrots And they're not going to be as happy because they don't get to engage with you all the time So although the intention is oh, I want to keep him safe and he's pretty. Let's make him happy You're just making him fat and stupid It's like actually taking a kid and putting food in front of him and just having him sit by himself in a certain area Saying there you go. Yeah, and then going off. Yeah. Yeah, you're right. It's it doesn't make sense And so the risk to us is would we like that life for our birds? Or would we rather see them free fly? And so for us the answer is obvious Within those boundaries. We are very cautious on what risks we do take though, but it's a quality of life And by the way to top off what you guys said that's why people's birds are destructive Because they're looking for things to do and they're bored, you know And so when you have birds eating your furniture, it's because you're not replacing it with another activity for them to do Exactly that brings us to myth number four Everybody is scared about what if my bird flies That way it never comes back big question Yeah, and I think a lot of people are thinking about that from the perspective of Right here right now if you took Vinny outside to free fly He would probably fly away and that's because you haven't done any of the ground work in the training But it's amazing how even our students from day one, they think that they're like, oh my gosh I'm so scared my bird's gonna fly away to the day that you actually go to take them outside If you ask them what their greatest fear is that doesn't even make the top 10 No, really no longer a thing because you are so confident in the work that you have put in That is no longer a thought in your mind So I get that it is right now with an untrained bird thinking just walking outside with this bird But when you've actually gone through the motions and done everything correctly That is no longer at the forefront of your mind the bigger picture about this kind of like my last scenario with You stick the bird in a cage and give it 24 hour access to food is that I'm more worried about the bird that isn't trained flying away And one of our clients came to us because their dog pushed open their door when their macaw was out and their blue throat escaped They found it five days later 40 miles away. So she and her husband came to us They even took out a loan so that they could pay for all the training up front because they were so committed That they didn't even want to free fly But they didn't want to have to go through that emotional toll that they just went through So to us the bigger danger is not Training your bird for free flight doesn't mean you have to take the bird outside for free flight But the bigger danger is losing a bird because you didn't train it The biggest thing is a bird will escape and it doesn't it was never trained how to properly descend People think this is ridiculous, but birds in captivity are never taught to fly Even if the breeder says the bird is properly fledged I I'm certainly it really like pissed off about this because nine times out of ten the breeder is full of it And they're saying that just to sell the bird and so these birds are not getting properly fledged And I know that because when we flight train them when their wings come back in it like one year old They don't have any of the skills. So a bird that wasn't properly fledged can't descend So it'll it'll us end with just a difference between five to ten mile an hour wind Even a clipped bird can go in circles and fly higher and higher as it gets higher There's more wind the wind goes different directions in different layers And now the birds gets pulled off and the higher it goes more scared it gets more scared it gets the higher it goes And that is a circular pattern and eventually you aren't able to recover the bird because it gets higher And more scared and doesn't possess the skills to come down So the fear I understand of a bird flying off and you'll never you'll never get it back but it's it's I think people should look at free flight or indoor flight training as The number one preventative measure for losing a bird when we get a new bird or a client's bird or a rescue bird to work with We teach step up step down touch a target and fly in that order And because once you start to teach bird to fly you're now enabling it to get out of a dangerous situation You're enabling it you're empowering this bird you're building its confidence and the rest of the engagement activities They just fall into place Yeah, some of the frustrations also for the bird to not being able to get out to where they're like They'll be stuck in a certain spot and they want to move but they don't have somebody to take and move around They become too dependent on you. That's why I love flighted birds. My birds have different personalities once they Can fly you see all these they do what they want. Yeah, they're smile, don't they? Yeah, they're just different birds Like they're more independent. What about recovery for a last bird and how do you feel about gps? Ah, okay So gps is easier and probably a shorter explanation So people have been getting into the gps, which is really cool because not only does it track your bird But it actually tracks how fast your bird is flying and the distance that it goes So when we take birds on free flight trips and some of our students have gps on their birds It's so fun to see the patterns that they fly how fast they were flying and all of that data that it stores So as much as it is really cool data to explore via gps Our precautionary and what we always tell students is yes, it's okay to get one But it's not okay to rely on that. It's not a substitute for training So you don't just take your bird outside because hey, I got a gps I can track it down Anything can go wrong with technology and you never want to have it be a replacement for training You should always act as though you do not have a gps when you take your bird out to free fly And that will keep you kind of on the honor system of making sure that your training is always up to par We've heard it firsthand You know, maybe the I'll change the scenario a little bit so it doesn't go back to the person that it came from But let's say for example that there's 30 mile an hour winds and this person's like, it's okay. I have a gps Well one you probably shouldn't be flying your bird in 30 mile an hour winds Most captive parrots are not capable of that even a very conditioned free flight of macaw It's going to be very specific Like we've been very fortunate in some of our travels to encounter 25 30 mile an hour steady winds And only two out of our flock could do it well So even though we are free flying birds all the time It's uh, you know, that's that you start getting dangerous there and you have to think through So in that scenario it was like, well, would you take your bird out in 30 mile an hour winds without the gps? If the answer is yes Then put the gps on and go do it if the answer is no Then then don't take the bird out But so many people are getting into that situation with like they get lazy They get relaxing complacent and they they forget about all of the foundation of training And they set themselves up for failure. We talk all the time about set yourself up for success of your flight Uh for the the most the optimal time optimal size bird everything that we've covered already And so the gps is a fantastic tool what gets measured gets improved So if you want to increase your bird stamina, you can see your metrics of Okay today flew 1.5 miles Let's see we can get them to 1.6 tomorrow And as you look at that you can start to build that up systematically, but you can't use it as a crutch It's a great tool, but but too many people use it as a crutch. So Um, I would love to use them. We just don't but I love working people that do have them Yeah, and the other side of that was how to recover a lost bird and Unfortunately, we've had a lot of experience of this but not with our own birds We've actually just had calls emails of people saying that their bird got out or they lost it and they asked us for help um and Unfortunately, it's been able to work out. That's actually how we have our customer service lady working for us She called us as a customer. Her bird got outside. She got on the phone with dave was able to recover her bird Uh, and now she does our customer service, but he's he's much he's just on top of it with I'm I really try to analyze all of the I know with the positive side of free flies gonna be so I really try to analyze What could go wrong because if you understand it In the moment when that emergency happens, you don't have to think through it Um, I'm a skydiver and when you skydive if something goes wrong you have one thing to do Cut away when you cut away your reserve goes automatically So I know no matter how stressful that in seven seconds I'm gonna impact if I don't fix that parachute. I have one action cut away saved Right, so you want to take out all of the emotional thinking that's going to happen in a recovery situation And think what is the one thing I can do so like cutting away with a canopy for a parachute Uh, you want to think through okay, what was the wind direction? Uh, how far can that bird go use my earlier reference if you just saw the macaw barely and it kind of disappeared But it looked like he landed go a quarter mile and start making small circles in that area getting bigger and bigger and bigger and going Uh, a client of ours that came to a master class. He was really interested in free flying his african gray And I said, you know, I remember saying afterwards to the host. I said I hope he doesn't do that without coaching and so sure enough a week later He lost his bird So he calls me up and uh, and I said well, hey, and I so I pulled up a an aerial shot of The exact spot he lost his bird and I looked at and I said, why don't you check this rooftop? Because I looked at the winds. I looked at what kind of bird what size sure enough He went up the roof there the bird was so It's easy To put yourself if you plant ahead of time like okay, we're in the new environment today. Where could the birds have landed? They would have maybe gone and crashed, but there was not even a tree for like five miles, right? So likely they were going to come back maybe land on a car or behind a bush And so that's pretty easy when you start adding three-dimensional complexity to it and the winds now if you're in a city You need to start to understand What is your bird's capabilities most of the time the birds are not trying to get away from you The bird is scared and it's going to look for the first place to land So look for the most realistic easiest place to land that the wind would have pushed it to Or if it was flying birds will fly into the wind to land So if it's a skilled flyer, it's going to be landing into the wind if it's a not skilled flyer It's not going to understand it and it's probably going to get pushed by the wind So now you have 180 degree different direction to go So you need to understand what your bird's capabilities are. So all this is pre-planned before we even open the door to the cage What's the worst case scenario? We have radios You know where we were today our cell phones had lte service yesterday today I didn't even have one bar of anything So we have actually went out and about FCC licensed radios. We have our very own channels They can be scrambled because a lot of people can hack into them if you're worried about it You know, there's just one more factor to consider And we have our very own private frequency So if we're in a in moab where there's a lot of people using the Motorola Radios, we don't have to worry about interference. We we're totally set. There's also like garmin makes a great Mapping gps radios. You can see where you've already tracked where you're looking for your bird There's so many tools available out there But the the key to that is is pre-planning. What's the worst that can happen? So if and when it happens You already know what to do what i'm hearing because what I know is the opposite of Logical is emotional And so what happens is people don't have the tools when they're emotional to think that kind of logical 100 true and So you have to be prepared with those kind of pieces of information Before you lose your bird because no matter what the emotion sets in and all logic goes out the door Unless you have that information in your back pocket myth number five Okay, this is one of those dramatic questions that you know when people want to talk negative about free flying or Even training your birds to be in magic shows. What about the idea of withholding food This might be one of the things that people are like. Well, I'm not gonna free fly my bird because they have to be trained to eat and Shed some better light on that for me I I'm The concept let's define the concept of withholding food. Everybody has a different perception of what that is Uh, you guys mentioned you skipped breakfast this morning. You didn't have lunch. Do you feel like you're withheld from food? Like you might be hungry, but it wasn't like taken away from you, right? That's the same thing that we work with right. So yes food is such a powerful motivator And that's what we work with I mentioned earlier in the wild birds fly all day They dig up stuff. They they tear apart things in the hopes of maybe getting food the idea behind that There's no promise of food They have to work for it. They're burning energy to get it and the most important part They're mentally engaged in the behavior as it's taking place So withholding food Is is it is too aggressive of a term and I think it paints a very bad picture We don't withhold food But we do manage how often and and how the bird gets it because They need to be mentally stimulated and challenged in captivity to to fully thrive And so it's no different than you don't eat 24 hours a day. You eat breakfast Maybe light snack you eat lunch. Maybe light snack dinner. You might wake up at midnight have ice cream I don't know you guys that well, but whatever it is You're you're withholding food to put it like how the haters might say right You're withholding food for those three or four hour increments in between meals That's all we do Right. We're saying hey, you know what? You're going to be a little hungry And so that's probably going to be the best time to work with you. Let's go fly at noon Or whatever it may be for that case, you know, you may not need to use food For rocky because he enjoys being with you whereas he doesn't enjoy being with marlene as much So you may need that extra incentive Yeah to make it worthwhile to come to you and so building on those relationships You know a lot of it is never withholding food as much as we're always the bringers of food So we would never take food away from our bird But we do give it at specific times and we try to make it so that the value of treats is very high They don't get nuts and seeds for nothing They don't just get them in their in their daily diet Their daily diet is like we treat them as though they are athletes because they are free flying and we want them as strong Flyers so they are getting a very fresh food in the morning and a very organic pellet at night And those treat foods those are what we use for training and the only time they see those are for those tricks Move behaviors that we ask for Exactly and it makes them high value if they're getting those on the daily They have no value to use as a reward and we although we still want them to get those foods We want them to get them in a productive way. She hinted to something that I need to clarify for everybody She said we're always a giver of food. We never take the food. This is so critical. Here's the scenario Let's say that you need your bird to go 12 hours without food. That sounds awful. Well, no, it's it had dinner It slept 12 hours now. It's getting breakfast. That's not withholding food. That's working with the bird's natural cycle So after 12 hours of no food, you're going to do your training session because that's when the bird's naturally most hungry That's how we're managing food. But here's the bigger picture There's two ways to get there but one of them is terribly wrong. One of them is excellent the first way It's 9 p.m. It's time for your bird to go to bed. You take out the remaining food that's in his cage He sleeps 12 hours through the night. It's 9 a.m. And you do a training session because he's hungry Okay, you bring him food at 9 a.m. After 12 hours. The other scenario is It's 9 p.m. The bird's ready for sleep. He just ran out of pellets because you measured them You knew exactly how much he would eat And so he has no pellets when you cut a little crumbs left, but that's it 12 hours goes by It's now 9 a.m. He's been 12 hours without food It might be the optimal time based on your experience for your bird to train them. So now you bring food Which way is right? You're getting the exact same result over the exact same amount of time, right? Where are you? So the catch there is if you're taking the food away after that 12 hours without food You're bringing food, but the bird's gonna say damn you You're the reason that I'm hungry and it's going to start to associate you with removing This valuable this giving of life Food that bowl the special bowl that just appears out of nowhere. Yeah, so now You're the culprit. You're the reason for this hunger Whereas if you start to learn how much your bird consumes on a daily basis and you give that appropriate amount Then 12 hours later You are the provider of food. You're the savior and the bird's like, thank god. You're here You wouldn't believe it happened. It's been 12 hours. I ran out of food on my own And thank you for giving me this opportunity to work for it So I just want to clarify that because I don't want people to take food out to go try to flight train at home Because you will totally screw over your relationship Potentially irreversible in as little as a week doing that So let me just clarify because I know there's some people that need things spelled out for them One the term withholding food is completely incorrect You're kind of budgeting their food according to how they naturally are eating it And then you're you're benefiting from the time that they're naturally hungry. Exactly. You're being a dietitian for the animals That's the first thing the second thing that everyone needs to realize which I think is very important Is that you're creating essentially a foraging for the bird as well, right? So the bird is getting to engage and interact and be rewarded Yes, so it's almost like they wake up and they have fun time and then they get their treat because they were hungry Anyway, and you're working off their natural eating schedules. Yes, and then so basically they're being engaged They're getting to forage and I would have thought that oh, yeah Like how does this schedule work? Which just reinforces the idea that this is not the information that is available to everyone naturally when they first start to Free fly or even work with animals. So that's another Validation that it's really important to go to somebody that knows I mean just think about the I'm not someone that's great in the kitchen or anything Like George is the one that prepares all the chop and does all that kind of stuff So just thinking about like figuring out how much the bird naturally eats in itself is very complicated Yeah, you know, I need to go to sleep knowing that if I run out the door Worst case there's food in the bowl. You know what I mean? Like so that's that's a lot of Yeah, and that's another reason that Every student has been different because for example, we have three sun conures. They all have different Metabolisms, so Lily wakes up in the morning and she's ready to train the other two No way you are not going to get any behaviors out of Phoebe and Diekka So you have to know there's no like oh you have a sun conure. Here's the exact amount you should be feeding That doesn't exist That's a trial and error experimentation thing that you have to figure out on your own for what your bird's metabolism is And how much it eats for who your bird is There's no this amount is for every type of african gray because african grays aren't all the same size They aren't all doing the same activity level. Everything is so different And that's why each student of ours is treated so differently. That's so enlightening. Isn't it? Yeah, and you know, um When we rescued the african gray, I mean it was under there for three days. Yeah, still yeah was pooping Yeah, so so there's still food in their belly. Even though it's not like they're not eating Yeah, think about in the wild, you know is is a bird guaranteed food 24 hours a day seven days a week No, they have to find it. Here's the other thing about withholding food that uh, people don't realize when I first got into parrots Um, I went to a mentor who I thought knew well because he had birds on tv on Gosh, can't remember the name of the show. I want to say Ed Sullivan show, but I don't know for sure But anyway, he had birds on tv. So I'm like, okay, this guy knows So I said, hey, I can't get my bird to do xyz and he looks at me and he goes How hungry was it? Hinting to make him really hungry and really withhold food the more I researched that The more I found that a bird will get used to living at a certain hunger level And that withholding of food no longer has any Leverage so you don't want to get the bird what we would refer to as hot You don't want to get the bird super hungry because at some point the birds are like, yeah, I don't care I'm used to this feeling of pain now And then now that's just a downfall for them and then you lost all your leverage So as you so perfectly resated it, it's about working with their natural feeding schedules and setting up Engaging enriching environments to to help them learn to fly and honestly you want that treat value to be high So that they're engaged enough to learn if a if an animal is too hungry. They're so focused on the food They're not learning anything and that's not the point. We're teaching. We're not just having them follow food Memphis number six What about your birds picking up random like, you know new castle disease and things like that the sparrows might have You know, yeah picked up and dropped and You know, um, well, we call our style of free flight free-style flying And what that means is we send our birds to fly and they will usually go for two to five minutes in the air or even Shorter sometimes longer, but they have a very fun exploratory flight and they come and they land back on us Yeah, so they aren't stopping to say hey to any wildlife That's I think you put it very well They're not hanging out in the trees I'm gonna get this coconut and I'll see you later We're not releasing them into the wild That is to explore nature. We are sending them to take fun flights to go play Does that mean they can land them like a tree as well then they they're outdoors loose so they could Yeah, they definitely could and there are juniper trees in moab which make their breath smell real nice Uh, but for the most part and trees aren't usually a problem unless your bird won't recall off And so we don't have a problem with our bird Maybe not being able to stick a land a landing lands in a tree then completes the flight That could happen based on wind change But they're not hanging out in a tree all day and hanging out with the sparrows It comes down to risk management too, right? Like what is the likelihood that our bird's gonna Meet an infected bird and examine its feces, right? Thank you. Yeah, thank you Let's get a Yeah, so I don't think it's that easy to fly behind another bird No, they were you know, so with with our style like she said freestyle it's about like they go fly They go play they come back to us There's other variations where people leave them out all day and they call that liberty flying and in that scenario I would see that their risk is probably going to be Definitely going to be higher because we don't know what that bird's doing all day long It comes back for dinner and and at that point those birds Are pretty much simulated wild birds who come in to eat, right? So and they can be kind of pet like but that's where you have to be more careful Is in that scenario, but with our style like our birds never even landed on anything other than us So there's very little risk of exposure for them You know Eating another birds. Yeah, okay. She cut me off. I was gonna go there. So yeah So I don't know if this is myth number seven But this is the last question that somebody asked me to ask you and I don't know if other people are wondering about it But it's interesting is free flight for you. Are you getting a benefit out of it? Or is it for your bird? Like some people might think it's for the the notoriety of flying a bird or is it about is about you? Or is it about the bird? Yeah, this is definitely about the birds and I feel like people have to come and experience free flight to understand What it means to the birds we aren't the ones out there flying but we are the ones out there witnessing their freedom and It's just it's something to see it on youtube and online and it's like, oh wow, it's so pretty birds doing what they're meant to do but when you're in person and You see a pet parrot fly off the end of a cliff Screaming that celebratory scream twitching and going upside down and jinking and having a great time and flying back up and landing on you breathless And smiling as parrots do That's what it's for and yes We document it because we're so proud of our birds. We're proud of our relationship with our birds We're proud of how far we've come. We're proud of our students We're proud of the fact that we share this magical experience with people all over the world And I wish that we could spread it even more. I wish we had Multiple versions of ourselves so that so that more people could learn at a quicker rate But It's for the birds and that's how it started out is that we tour so often that our free flight trips The bird trips and that's why we don't invite everybody's like hey Can we come out and and hang out while you guys have your bird trip and we're like No Like i'm sorry, but this is for our birds and if we invite other people to come out What happens is we end up answering questions the whole time Not focusing on our birds not paying attention to our birds and the whole reason that we're there is for them It's this is for them. This is our gift to them as far as how to give them freedom while still living with us Here's here's the reality. There's people out there that that I'm sure do it for the the pictures and the selfies and this and that and the ego right and The reality of our situation is that these birds first their family They're part of our family and they have been and they always will be Second we work with them. We tour 300 to 365 days a year that means in actually over two years. We were home at our house five days Our birds didn't choose that lifestyle. They didn't choose to be on stage. They didn't choose to be on stage with pyrotechnics music audiences So we take these birds and our gift or thank you to them is hey look It's amazing to get to share this life with them and we let them go fly free So that's what it's about for us Yeah, no, it's just something you have to experience to understand I feel like I do feel though it's for both It's it's it's not just them for the bird. It's also for you. Oh, don't get me wrong It fulfills us, but it's it is it is the priority is that look thank you for being part of the show Thanks for they provide us our income the absolute damn least we can do is let them go fly for a month every year Yeah, that's amazing All right, so where do I sign up? Yes I get what you're saying because like if I free flight my birds it would be for me too because My happiness is theirs. Yeah, exactly when We first got into free flight. We already had a toucan We had our rosy bondi her galak You're crying you're all crying And and then we got cresci afterwards, right? So we got cresci our african grad to teach her to see if we could learn this And we taught cresci as a baby and it was it was you know easy, right? So then we're like, well, can't be that easy. Let's try let's do with bondi and jamie Really want to do with bondi and as the more like conservative party of this and she was like, let's push push push I'm like, no, let's not yet. I was like no way I don't want to lose our our family member. And so we got banded and I said, let's do it with a with another galak But let's do it as a baby and see what the What the tendencies are and holy cow a gray versus a galak was totally different a gray I go awfully like that And so yeah, this progression went on until finally like, okay. I think bondi was like Seven or eight by this point and we're like put her on a harness And I remember we would fly her on a harness as far as he'd let me go He goes you can harness trainer and put her on a harness and we'll fly her back and forth Which we don't we we really strongly advise against there's so many things that can go wrong with that We took the you know, our what's the worst that could happen. Let's prevent this So we had a very safe experience of the flight train with the harness, but even that it was like, oh, I was so nervous then I still remember it. We took off the harness and she looked at me like Are you serious? It took us like eight freaking years to have that trust with that bird And I let her go and she flew and was the yipe yipes in the joy I kid you not and you know as an owner of a galak when she came back she was grinning ear to ear and man Now now we trust her with it It took us a while because because we had that bond We were more careful with an adult bird than we were with the baby and again The babies are so much easier the adults are so much more difficult because of you're dealing with history You're dealing with everything but everything and it's it's it's less about flight training with the older birds As much as is breaking bad habits and breaking through these barriers that they have and lack of confidence or or bad habits Even and when you do it with an adult bird You just have so much more respect for what goes into this and you have such a better understanding Of what you've put in one last thing I want to say like I feel like I have to say this because people are gonna ask me people said like If you would have free Flied Picasso and I know that like like you talked about the risk people said why didn't you clip his wings? and it's like One person wrote to me something that stuck with me. They said I understand you you took a risk for the better life of your bird like If you just saw like Picasso fly and like he could fly anywhere like a hummingbird Yeah, it was really I need to care of him something. I wanted to give him that and I almost knew it was a risk I didn't feel like Him so small would be the best candidate for free flight and I want to like clarify that because a lot of people are like Well, if you would have free fly because I wouldn't have not been like the first bird we go to free fly You know, but I am confident that he's Doing well out there because those kind of birds he because he was so self-sufficient in the house Do you know what I mean? Like I don't believe somebody found them I believe he's out there foraging because that's what he knew how to do in my home, you know So I understand your risk like Versus their joy. That's why I asked I didn't want to say it before but anyway So that is it guys I hope that you enjoy that if you have any more questions for them or anything you want to know Leave it in the comments, but you can also go over to their channel. You want to say your channel name? Yeah, our channel is youtube.com forward slash bird tricks and we just kind of specialize in working with your Average parrot owner who needs help inviting screaming whatever it is we can help and our motto is to save birds One person at a time because it all comes down to the actions you take So hopefully you can reach out to us marlene anybody else find a coach Do the best you can now that you are armed with the knowledge Of what to do. Don't just sit there on that knowledge. Go out and take action. Yeah, spread the knowledge Yeah, but spread the knowledge that you That you Don't take this as just enough knowledge You know what I mean like really go out and research everything you can reach out to these guys Reach out to anybody else that you know is valid in the Field before you do anything and stay tuned for rocky's free flight journey And stay tuned that would be fantastic if rocky could be free Trained to be continued All right, we love you guys