The startle response

Parrot rarely fly out of doors and windows because they're curious about what's out there. Most stories of escaped birds begin with an incident that startles the bird. Startled parrots fly upward. An open door or window becomes a magnet for a parrot that wants to fly higher than the ceiling will allow.

Millions of years of life in the wild have taught birds that up high is safer than down low. A bird with clipped wings will still fly upward if sufficiently startled, because adrenaline makes up for what the scissors take off. Owners of escaped birds are invariably surprised that the bird was able to fly at all, much less ascend into a tall tree. (It is possible to clip a parrot so severely that no amount of effort will allow it to climb, but then the parrot risks injury in minor falls, especially over hard surfaces like tile, linoleum, or wood floors.)

Startled flight though an open door or window is where the problem begins, but not where it ends. Once airborne and outdoors, a clipped parrot is likely to become even more frightened by the unfamiliar environment and the unexpected altitude. A frightened parrot that has spent its life indoors and no more than a few feet above the floor will remain frightened when it finds itself ten feet up in a place without walls. And where do frightened parrots go? As high as they can, as fast as they can.

Then there's the question of getting back down.

Setting expectations

A birds that escapes after spending its entire life as a pedestrian may not even understand that it needs to fly to get back home. Daily experience teaches non-flighted birds that they can count on a human to rescue them from high places.

When I first got Phoebe (only two months ago as I write this), she was easily startled and would often fly to a particular tall lamp that I have. I didn't want the lamp getting pooped on, so I'd "rescue" her. She eventually learned that flying there would get me to come pay attention to her - she started flying to that lamp when I left to use the bathroom. It worked, until I caught on. These days, instead of her training me to come pick her up, I'm training her to come to me when called. It's worth noting that she doesn't fly up to the lamp very much anymore - unless of course something startles her.

When a clipped bird gets startled and flies up somewhere, how often does the bird have to fly back down, and how often does the owner come to the rescue? If the usual consequece of flying up somewhere high is a human bringing the bird back down, then what will the bird expect to happen after it startles out an open door or window, and lands high up in a tree?

Physical ability

Startled panic flights are one thing, but deliberate return flights are another. Once a startled parrot comes to rest, its flight muscles are exhausted. After the adrenaline wears off, it's not going anywhere. Unless perhaps it gets frightened, in which case it's likely to climb further out of reach and land with even less strength remaining for the flight back down. Even fully feathered indoor flyers are likely to be somewhat tired after a panic flight into a tall tree, but the remaining strength might mean the difference between staying outside and returning home.

Clipped birds can be exercised, but without flight feathers to catch the air and support their weight, they will never develop the musculature of a flighted bird. It's like the difference between a person doing jumping jacks versus a person doing chin-ups. Flapping your arms with no resistance gets your heart rate up a bit, but lifting yourself off the ground will build far more muscle mass.

Learning to fly

No birds is born with an ability to fly like the wild birds we see in our yards every day. Many breeders can attest to the clumsy crash-landings of fledglings, and one of my favorite wild bird watching moments came from a juvenile bald eagle's flight into a dense forest. Crash, crunch, flutter, crash... I was a bit surprised to see the poor creature escape to open air without giving up and walking out of the forest. Flying is hard! It takes time to learn, and it takes lots of practice to master.

Phoebe, my five year old bronze-wing pionus, has been fully feathered for a couple years now, but as I train her to fly to a perch or back to me on command, it's pretty clear that she's still much less confident of her wings than she is of her feet. She hesitates to fly - she needs lots of motivation to overcome her lack of confidence. Training has helped tremendously, but we still have a ways to go. She'll immediately come as close as her feet will take her, but sometimes it takes a while before she realizes that her wings can, will, and must take her the rest of the way.

But at least she has had some practice. A clipped bird will often be expected to make its first deliberate flight from high up in a tree, in an unfamiliar (and thus frightening) environment, and with tired aching muscles from the flight up. Is it any wonder that, once airborne again, escaped parrots so commonly fly up to an even higher perch? How would you feel, jumping off a branch 20 feet up? Wings only provide comfort if you are confident that they will work, and how often does a clipped bird have a chance to built that confidence? How often does a clipped bird learn that its wings can provide a controlled descent, and how often does it learn that its wings cannot stop it from bruising its keel after a terriflying plummet to the ground?

Training

The most important factor in recovering an escaped bird has little to do with the bird itself, and everything to do with the bird's owner. It's training. People who keep flighted birds have no illusions about clipped wings providing any protection against escape. Thus they are more likely to train the bird fly - and more importantly, to fly back.

A fully feathered bird that wasn't allowed to fledge (learn to fly as a baby) will often need encouragement to fly, but with practice they learn to trust their wings, to take longer flights and to make better landings. Training a bird to fly to you is a rewarding experience for the bird and trainer alike, as the bird's confidence and skill increases over time. Few things have been as rewarding a Phoebe flying to my shoulder with no cue at all, simply because she wanted to be with me.

The strengthing of our relationship is actually reward enough for the time we spend training. Knowing that recall training increases her chances of coming back home after an escape is just the icing on the cake.

A comparison

Simultaneously, at opposite ends of your street, two parrots roam their homes... two doors are opened... two drinking glasses are dropped, shattering... and two parrots fly outside for the first time.

Across town to the north, a clipped bird flies into a tree 25 feet up and 20 feet away from the door it escaped through. Across town to the south, a fully feathered bird flies into a tree 30 feet up and 25 feet away.

The clipped bird is afraid of heights, afraid of the unfamiliar surroundings, completely exhausted, has no idea how it got into the tree, but experience has proven the its owner will bring it back down - after all, that's how things always turned out indoors, why should outdoors be any different?

The fully feathered bird is afraid of heights, afraid of the unfamiliar surroundings, and a bit tired. It knows that the whistle it hears from the doorway means that a flight to its owner will be rewarded by a beak full of its favorite treat. It may never have descended so far at such a steep angle, but it knows what its wings are for.

Which do you think is more likely to be home for dinner?

© 2003 Nate Waddoups