Nope not about to let BB try it for a long time. I am just curious and not sure there is a answer to this but, here it goes.

If I were a bird and someone said GO FLY and tossed me into the air. I will be damn if I would come back to a place where I could not fly when ever I wanted.

SO what makes a bird return ? The Flock ? The bond ? I know some do not return .

It just amazed me to watch some of these people free flight and the bird will go off into what seems like a long distance only to turn and fly back. Amazing.

Whooops I should have put this under the General Parrot

From my understanding, it's a lot about understanding the nature of parrots along with recall training. Parrots stay within the same flock for life. They are bonded to their flock, and don't tend to stray far. A free-flight trained bird comes back because of the natural bond and the conditioning he/she gained during recall training. In nature, a bird would have learnt this as a baby from the parent birds, but in captivity we must teach them. Of course, a bird who has spent his/her whole life indoors or only outside in a cage spooks, it may panic and keep flying because it has no idea what it's doing (flying on instinct), isn't used to the outdoors and/or it may get stuck in a tree (many captive birds can only fly up, they are scared/unwilling to fly down from high places, as silly as that seems). Free flight takes a lot of work and training that works up to outdoor flight. I definitely think BB should go out on a harness for now

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Wow thanks for this post...for now I'll also keep sissy on a harness.

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Life should not be measured by the breathes you take, but by the moments that take your breath away

Oh trust me BB will not be outside anytime soon. He hates the harness so far.

Sissy does ok..she's been moody lately due to molting. Practice pratice practice I guess.

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Life should not be measured by the breathes you take, but by the moments that take your breath away

It's primarily the bond.

It's secondarily conditioning.

You have to represent safety and security to the bird, or it won't work.

There's a difference between a simple fly to me, and a free flighted recalled bird. The latter is A LOT more complex... (DON'T TRY THIS AT HOME!)

It is amazing to watch

Normally they do one circle around the area, and then off they go...

Hop in the car and chase after them...

When I was free flight training Sweepea, she took off on me once, ended up in a tree in the school about a mile or so from my house. Next stop from there was the local forest... which was inhabited and patrolled regularly by red tailed hawks. (Death sentence for a baby big mac.)

Yeah. That one gets your attention.

Until you watch them fly away, or you watch a predator swoop in and take them. (or almost take them.)

I am going to start free flying Sally and Maggie again, BUT not the others.

I would be so scared to try it. I need to take some pictures this weekend and post on here. Our area is so full of Hawks. They are so pretty flying but not to close lol. We have had one dive at our Corgi The Jack we have ran at it and scared it away. That was a few years ago. No way does BB go onto the deck even in his cage without me right there.