As I had switched tasks and there were only 10 training sessions we only worked Palmer 5 times in the flight. On one occasion he did not come forward to the perch in his home flight to take a nut so Cassie decided not to take him out. This is NEI policy. The bird can choose whether or not to work.
Once in the large flight Palmer behaved with varying attention span. By the end of the week he could fly three-quarters of the loop. Karen took him beyond the pole and I called him back to me. He never showed any lunging behaviour but after a few flights tended to fly to another perch. Cassie always ended the session when his attention span slackened. With a
further day I would have hoped
he would have
flown the loop. As on my previous visit, he was a joy to work with. He is called ‘he’ at the ranch but Palmer is actually a hen.
Skittles, a scarlet macaw, was being trained for outdoor free flight. We only worked with him in the corridor of the aviary and also in an outdoor netted enclosure. He made steady progress in flying between Karen and me. But Cassie decided he was not ready to fly outside. Laverne, the Blue and Gold was being retrained for outdoor flight. Some years previously she had flown in shows. She had developed a habit of lunging at brusque movements. Karen managed to weigh her and crate her and avoid the lunging. On first being taken out to the netted enclosure, (tennis court size) Laverne was tense and Cassie did not want her to fly. Once we got into the habit of bringing her buddy Comet in a crate she calmed down. The most
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