Flying abilities Male and Female??

Is their a difference?? I'm thinking it is a dumb question and males and females are both capable of achieving the same level of flying ability (given the exposure and opportunity), but Pebbles and Gizmo even sound different on take off and in flight, and I'm wondering if that is all about practice, or if the fact that one is male and the other is female makes a difference?

So apart from Gizmo and Pebbles, I haven't been around other eclectus parrots, except at our local reptile park (but those birds are not very active), so not much experience to go off.

We have been working with Pebbles for the last few months on flying to us, and for the most part now, if she thinks she has a good flight path and stable landing, she will happily fly over (especially if treats are involved ). She has even started following Gizmo a few times, when he fly's to the adjacent room (although only if she has line of sight).

Pebbles on take off and in flight sounds very different than Gizmo (she sounds "heavy", with a lot of energy being wasted). Initially I put this down to the fact that she was moulting her wing feathers, but now that seems to be over, and she has all her feathers.

Gizmo loves to fly, he is a high energy boy, and at least once a day, will burn off some energy with a few crazy laps of the house. Gizmo is very agile in the air, we have a small house, and when he is burning some energy, he will intentionally chop and change direction in mid flight, hover and adjust himself before landing, fly into rooms, turn around and fly back out, and can land on our arm without impact, or intentionally come in fast and land suddenly and accurately. Gizmo has always been encouraged to fly, and we have made it a key part of his out of cage time. He plays games like "hide and seek", where he has to find my wife who has hidden in one of the rooms, "abort landing", by dropping our arm at the last minute, this is where he started to learn to hover and adjust his landing, etc (and yes I realise it is sad that we have come up with names for our games).

I am sure Pebbles will learn to fly to her best ability, it is in her nature, she is always thinking and trying to work out the best way to do something, and she never wants to miss out (truth be told, Gizmo taught Pebbles to fly to me, because if she didn't Gizmo got first pick out of the cup of peas, because he had flown to me while I was walking over). If she is out of her cage, and I walk out of the room, she will crane her neck to see what I'm doing in the other room, especially if Gizmo is with me (especially if she thinks he is getting something she isn't). I suspect that even if sex plays no part in flying ability, that she will never fly as good as Gizmo, as she unfortunately missed out on the opportunity at an early age, but it would be good to know, if their is a difference, and even get an idea from others, about how keen and confident their eclectus parrots are with flying.

Cheers,

Cameron

P.S. Just a quick background on Pebbles and Gizmo for those who don't know their stories. We adopted Gizmo at about 9 months (he had some bad habits, but had come from a caring home). We found Pebbles at a poultry auction (still makes me mad to think of someone selling her at a poultry auction, especially as it was a really hot day), she was said to be 3 years old, but obviously we can not be sure, she was clearly a lovely girl, but with a neglected past (has never said any words, did not even really know how to step up, and took me a long time to develop trust). She has a sweet, but also a cheeky nature about her (I could imagine Gizmo unsupervised would pull the buttons off the TV remote, but Pebbles would remove and hide the batteries)

It can have to do with how they were fledged, how early their wings were clipped, who taught them to fly (parents, breeders, nobody?), etc. Lots of babies get their wings clipped before getting a chance to REALLY learn to fly like a jet and you can see it when they get their flight feathers back. The sex should not make a difference in flight ability.

Hi Cameron,

We got our female Eclectus (Cherry) about 5 months ago. She's 12 years old and we don't know much about her past (e.g. how much she was allowed out of her cage).

Her cage is always open when we're home so she's free to come and go as she pleases but she seems pretty much cage-bound (sitting on or in her cage most of the time but occasionally coming on our shoulders for a quick walk around). She seems to 'want' to fly, though, but she doesn't have the courage to take off -- and she is VERY poor at landing, only stopping when she hits something (a door, the TV, the floor...).

We do encourage her to fly but mostly she only takes off when she's scared or startled. Sometimes, she'll fly back to her cage from a few feet away on the odd occasion that we can get her away from her cage.

She also seems pretty 'heavy' when she flies and it's very loud!

I'd really love to see her happily flying around because she seems to want to... and she's pretty magnificent with her wings spread! Maybe if she had a much bigger, open space, she'd be more confident to go for it!

Best wishes,

Anita

Puck,

Thanks for clearing that up for me, I assumed that was the case, but wanted to double check (like I said dumb question, but I figured doesn't hurt to double check).

Anita,

Thanks for sharing your story about Cherry, this sounds very much like Pebbles was, keen, but unsure and very uncoordinated, although I must credit her for a big improvement over the last few months.

My aim with Pebbles is to have her confidently flying. I think it's something she will enjoy, and it's good for her to get the exercise, but I also think it will help to avoid injury (should she get startled and fly into something) and to give her a fighting chance should the worst happen and she got out of the house (there are a lot of dogs, and cats in our area).

She has definitely got more confidence and skill over the last few months. Initially, I would put my arm out, she would pace back and forth, crouch, half flap, but then second guess herself. Fortunately Pebbles is very much food or toy orientated, so I just basically started close, and gradually made the gap bigger. With all that said, Gizmo is and will continue to be the real key to her improvement, partly due to her nature of not wanting to miss out, and also in showing Pebbles that she can do it.

Cheers,

Cameron

Actually there is a slight difference with eclectus. Males while they look bigger are usually lighter and built more for longer flights. In the wild the female once she finds a suitable nest doesn't leave it. It is the males that go flying longer distances to forage for food to bring back the the females.

This isn't to say that females can't fly as well as the males but from what I have seen they don't take to it as much or have the endurance for longer flight training like the males do.

labell said:

Actually there is a slight difference with eclectus. Males while they look bigger are usually lighter and built more for longer flights. In the wild the female once she finds a suitable nest doesn't leave it. It is the males that go flying longer distances to forage for food to bring back the the females.

This isn't to say that females can't fly as well as the males but from what I have seen they don't take to it as much or have the endurance for longer flight training like the males do.

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Thanks for clarifying, that's good to know. Gizmo definitely has a fly for fun personality.

Cheers,

Cameron

There's a video on YouTube (try this link: [ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zUDIhaPbVCg"]Eclectus - YouTube[/ame]) that shows a female sitting in her 'hole in a tree' while various males come to feed and mate with her. If this is typical eclectus behaviour, then it would stand to reason that, maybe, the females fly a lot less naturally.

Cameron, Cherry also does that crouch/half-flapping thing a lot then aborts the flying mission at the last moment as her courage doesn't quite get up to the required level. Her crash-landings can't be helping her confidence either...

Best wishes,

Anita

Ooooh, I didn't know it would actually put the video in. I am allowed to do that????

CherryBerry said:

Ooooh, I didn't know it would actually put the video in. I am allowed to do that????

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Indeed you are, Anita. As long as the videos (or images) are appropriate for a family-friendly forum, does not come from another bird forum, and is not a sales ad of some sort, they are just fine.

And thank you very much for that video. Very informative and enjoyable. I knew the facts from research I've done, but I'd never seen a video on it.

Just a thought - could your girl be overweight? I dunno about the ekkies, but my female lovebird was a really bad flier when I got her as a baby although she was almost never clipped (and when she was, it was just a little bit). My boys flied like rockets with half clip, and she could barely make it through the room. But when I converted all my birds to pellets she lost some weight, and now she is no worse than others, better actually. She is the only one who flies through the whole house to find me and never gets lost in the rooms. So it might just be the matter of time.

Thank you for sharing an awesome video!!