Advice on Flighted Parrot

Hello All,
I have been a parrot mum for most of my 35 years. I had a Meyer who was my winged love for 14 years and always clipped the feathers, I knew no other way.
Kinda by accident, I noticed that my current GCC started trying to fly. So I allowed the flight feathers to continue to grow and now he flys all over the house and flys to me and away when he wants space.
The other day I was alarmed because I came home and had a package in my hands. With the door open and my hands full, the parrot flew toward me / the open door. This scared me. The place his cage is positioned is right in line with the door and I am worried that he will fly out. Any thoughts on this ??? Should I go back to clipping ?
He seems SO much happier with the ability to fly and I'd hate to rob him of it, but I fear he may fly out.

My bird is flighted, so he's only on the loose when I'm home and on guard. I live in a householld that isn't busy, so I can arrange and impose my host of precautions and double-checks. If you have the slightest doubt that you can do that, I'd sadly say "clip". The loss of a bird is horrific thing...

I've had a dear dear parrot fly away many years ago ( and I can still feel the pain of that). Needless to say - Salty is clipped.

I would suggest other precautions. Because of the curious nature of birds, I always suggest the safest place for them while you are away is in the cage. If you have him contained while you are away, there is no need to clip him.


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Thanks for the feedback. I am gone for up to 9 hours a day which is my reasoning for leaving him out of the cage . Maybe I am wrong for even doing that but I feel so much guilt about keeping him all couped up in the day , every day that I work

wrench13 said:

I've had a dear dear parrot fly away many years ago ( and I can still feel the pain of that). Needless to say - Salty is clipped.

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@wrench13 I am so sorry to hear that your parrot flew away. Would you mind sharing how that happened ? I guess my hope would be that if he got 'out' he would be trained to fly back.

SilverSage said:

I would suggest other precautions. Because of the curious nature of birds, I always suggest the safest place for them while you are away is in the cage. If you have him contained while you are away, there is no need to clip him.


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There is so much hurt a GCC can get into, unattended! They love to tunnel into anything! Since all birds seem to be OCD, if they see a wire that looks out of place, or irregular paint work, they WILL fix it! The bright light of an open door is a magnet! I know someone that lost their GCC, in the house, for 10 minutes! retracing their steps--fid safe--in freezer! Very upset, but OK!

If needed, get a bigger cage! Your house is your cage, I doubt you sleep with the doors and windows open!

I may be thinking way out of the box, but a curtain in front of the door?

I think of this, as I have 2 doors going out of the house, so I just always keep one of them closed, when going in and out and this elliminates the risk of any bird flying out.

If you would want a fair chance of getting your bird back, god forbid, if he did get out the door, you will probably need to get him used to the light and noices outside. In most cases with birds, not used to be outside the house, is they get freaked out by the great outdoors, that even if you are right there and calling, they will be in panic mode and not able to hear you or react normally.

SilleIN said:

If you would want a fair chance of getting your bird back, god forbid, if he did get out the door, you will probably need to get him used to the light and noises outside. In most cases with birds, not used to be outside the house, is they get freaked out by the great outdoors, that even if you are right there and calling, they will be in panic mode and not able to hear you or react normally.

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This is so true! When I lost JoJo, house full of smoke, panicked getting him into his portable cage, he went for the bright open door! Well, I bring him next-door to visit everyone all the time, After 5 minutes in a tree, he went over to them for help!

Don't forget recall training!


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SilverSage said:

Don't forget recall training!


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Huh? That never even worked with my human children!

Perhaps you didn't use the right bribes


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The circumstances that I lost Skylar under would be quite different from some one having a parrot fly out a door and are difficult for me to recount un-nessisarily. Needless to say though it is something I would never ever want another member here , or any parront , to experience .

You could get a screen for your door. Or confine your bird to one room when you are gone.

Definitely get your bird used to being outside safely though (harness or carrier). A bird that is used to outside is much easier to recover then one that has never been out.

So, I have been thinking and reading a lot about what folks have said regarding this issue. In an ideal world, I would have a whole room dedicated to the parrot where I could leave him out in the day and then let him be with me in the rest of the apartment when I am back home.
That is not the case, his cage is situated in the living room area, and I choose to leave him out unless he is getting quiet time before bed and while asleep. His sleeping cage is in my bedroom and its lights out at 7pm so he gets his full 12.
I know some advise not to leave the bird alone roaming free but I have not had an issue with it. In fact, yesterday... when I was doing some training with him, I went next door briefly and left him on his perch in the living room and when I came home, he had flown back over to his cage and was hanging on top of the play pen. I do not have a chewer. What he does like to do, is sit on his perch outside the cage, look out at passer by' ers and then he pushes the blinds with his beak so they sway back n forth. I've had him fly to me around the house when I am in other rooms and he and my dog are pals. So I think I may look into moving the cage to the other end of the living room so he has a further distance if he tries to fly "out" BUT then again, he hasnt tried to fly out since that first time, so maybe I am just being paranoid.

khaiqha said:

You could get a screen for your door. Or confine your bird to one room when you are gone.

Definitely get your bird used to being outside safely though (harness or carrier). A bird that is used to outside is much easier to recover then one that has never been out.

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I was thinking about a screen but then again, don't i have to open the screen too when I am coming in ? He only tried this twice in one week and it has not happened since. I have just been super careful lately. I peek my head into the room and see where he is before I just swing the door wide open.
I should add... once when I first moved to this building, his feathers were clipped and I had him out, not in a flight suit. He wiggled out of my hands, and started flying... as a CLIPPED bird ! But I called his name and he circled back around and came to me instead of going to the tree !
He is trained in a flight suit to go outside and we go many places together.

Yes, clipped birds can fly! In fact in some ways a flighted bird is safer if they escape than a clipped bird. Depending on the home, clipping can be the better option for safety, but I'm glad you know that clipping alone does NOT prevent escape especially in small birds.


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I'm gone up to 12-14 hours a day. My birds are in their cages the whole time with toys, food, water, more toys, some ping pong balls, snacks and some toys.

Why? To protect them, the other house critters and the house itself. As someone noted: Birds are OCD and they will "fix" anything that strikes them as not right. I don't need to come home to a hole in the sheet rock and a bird chewing wires in the wall.

To compensate for all the cage time they get lots of toys in the cages (I might not have mentioned that) and lots of play time when I am home. It's just safer for everyone and makes for a saner environment for me!

Our Amazon was a mechanic in his prior life! Place him in a cage, lock the door and when we get home, the cage has been disassembled! In addition, he is fully flighted and Free-Roaming! We have that wonderful (most of the time) open floor plan style home that allows him full view of the doors. The good part is that his longest flight is near thirty feet with the shortest at about fifteen feet. Point being, we can see him coming! Also, we have a table outside those two doors which allows us to enter the door with less in our hands!

With the new home, we also have two doors that go direction to the outdoors and both have storm doors (screen doors for my Southern Friends). We have double door closures on storm doors, one at the top of the door and one at the bottom of the door. To say the least, they can be a pain-in-bottom-end since they follow you closely as you enter your home. By the time you are barely inside, they are closed tightly!

We find that the combination of a waiting table outside the door and the storm door with the double closure on them works for us!

Nothing works better than expecting an in-your-face arrival!

SailBoat said:

Our Amazon was a mechanic in his prior life! Place him in a cage, lock the door and when we get home, the cage has been disassembled! In addition, he is fully flighted and Free-Roaming!


Nothing works better than expecting an in-your-face arrival!

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I have had Ryu get into more mischief when he was unable to fly. Since having all flight feathers, the most he's done is fly a lap around the living room and land on me when I am washing dishes in the kitchen. The other night, it was past his "bedtime" and he flew off my leg and into his sleeping cage.

I may try to cage him for a bit and see if he adapts , I just feel horrible because for most of his life, he's been out of the cage other than sleep. Never chewed anything, and when he did not have the ability to fly, he would glide down to the floor and just perch on the shoe rack.

Of course, god forbit something did happen to him, I'd have guilt forever.