Bean and Zazu must surely go to the same yoga class! :)

Debbi
NZ

Debbi, Zaz is such a jolly boy that i seriously considered renaming him "Sunny Jim" after i adopted him... still, this photo captures him at the happiest i've ever seen him, blushing away and just radiating joy...

How's Hootie the cutie? Got any new pics?

Posted a pic yesterday 'Hoot and the Wizard'. I actually lost her for awhile, when I tracked her down there she was sitting on the wizard's knee. :>

Debbi
NZ

Now if only I could do that like I did when I was a kid.

Bean hasn't had too much outside time lately. When I put him on the rope he is more concerned about keeping an eye on me.

Very clingy lately. Maybe because I am now un(self)employed and home more often.

We are buying some mountain property. Thought about going out in a field but so damned hot around here in VA.

Mountain property has tons of trees. Kind of scares me but we'll take it one step at a time.

Yeah, trees are very scary. The theory i'm going on is twofold: more experience playing in trees will make them less "novel" and give the bird a chance to develope some strategies for coming down at a point where we are both relaxed and clear-headed; and more importantly, right now Zazu going up into a tree gives me an opportunity to reinforce him for coming down out of the tree.

We've actually made a game of it - "going up in order to come down for a treat and admiration." i'm able to get a lot of repetition and reinforcement this way.


Basically i'm trying to face my own fears (about losing him in a tall tree and not having anything reinforcing enough to compete with the fun of being in a tree) head-on. Fly-down skills are critical too, but i've heard an awful lot of macaw-in-tree scenarios where the impression was that once up there for whatever reason, the bird was having such a blast that there was really very little incentive to try a scary fly-down. Mouse taught himself to hop from branch to branch and from tree to tree in order to come down from a height... i'm hoping Zaz will do the same (he does seem to be working on this) before he gets into some "too-high" situation that ends as an overnighter or worse.

Has Zazu taken any exploratoy flights? Such as you thought he was going to one place but went somewhere else?

What's the highest he has gone up?

Nope, no exploratory flights yet, he's probably nowhere near Bean's flight skill/confidence level. He still doesn't have all of his flights in, though he could get pretty far on what he does have in a panic, which is very scary. The highest he's gone up is about fifteen feet.

He's only three years old, but he was a giant-pet-store-chain baby who never got to fledge, followed by multiple homes and pet store stints where he was caged the majority of the time. With me he's been very clingy, and still screams his head off if he can't see me when outside (which strikes me as a good thing). At first this seemed pretty discouraging; now i'm trying to use it to our advantage: conditioning a rock-solid outdoor recall and some tree skills, as well as area familiarization, while he's still not inclined to do much independant flying. i do a lot of his non-flight training outside so he learns to focus on me in that environment. That way we can concentrate on flight skills as he shows more interest, without worrying so much about the foundation skills.

All that said, i'm just sort of "winging it" with him (pun intended), would love to hear any and all comments, suggestions, questions!

As I am sure you are learning they can fly very far very quickly - heh. Bean is not a great flyer. Can just get from point a to point b. Very out of shape. He is taking some point to point flights inside without being prompted. Hopefully when we build the new house and keep it totally open he will be less lazy.

No kidding... especially in my neighborhood. Two flaps and he's gone from sight. i keep telling myself, "Trees are a GOOD thing - they're all that keep Zaz from winding up in the next county!"

i'm looking for an indoor space for him to get some real flight practice... my tiny studio just won't cut it.

See if there are any armories in your area. We got permission, easily, to use a couple of them near Seattle. They're run by the national guard or the army or both, I'm not exactly sure. Try using google, searching for the word "armory" and whatever cit you live in, or whatever big city you're closest to.

Nate Waddoups
Redmond WA USA

Thanks, Nate, i'll check it out. As an aside, Zaz startled at something and almost launched himself off my arm outside last evening; i was very lucky to get my free hand over him before he disappeared into the sunset...