How to help my tiel not crash land?

[ILoveTiels]

Hi everyone

Just looking for some advice on helping my adult tiel become a stronger flier. Before she came to me she was clipped her whole life, but we've done training and she now had all her flight feathers again. We typically practise 2x a day, morning and evening. It looks like this: I extend my arm fully out and she sits on my hand. I count down and gently wave my hand up and down to the countdown, and then say Go. She flies off my hand across the room onto the target which is the counter top. She's getting quite good at this except the landing. About half the time she will clear the counter top and make it but the other half she either misses or crashes into it. I've laid down a blanket so she's perfectly fine but whenever she ends up on the ground she seems really lost and confused, like she's slipped into some kind of time warp... is there any way I can help her work on landing more or is this just something she has to figure out herself through repetition? I've tried to work on recall training and getting her to fly to me but currently we're stuck at the "slight stretch to step up" step of the matter as she's a bit skittish about such things.

Thanks in advance for the advice

 

[ILoveTiels]

I can't post videos here it seems but this is her having perfected the landing one time

 

[texsize]

I don’t have any great suggestions on this.
This is exactly the reason why it’s important for fledgling birds not to be clipped and learn to fly (and land) when young and not able to build up to full speed.

there are some here on the forum that have trained there birds to fly, hopefully they’ll chime n with good ideas.

 

[ILoveTiels]

I don’t have any great suggestions on this.
This is exactly the reason why it’s important for fledgling birds not to be clipped and learn to fly (and land) when young and not able to build up to full speed.

there are some here on the forum that have trained there birds to fly, hopefully they’ll chime n with good ideas.

She actually had a breakthrough today and only crashed once! I think practise is just key here

 

[wrench13]

Yup, practice, practice and more practice. Same way one gets to Carnegie Hall ( I've yet to make it so far). If you can, try doing shorter flights, so she can't build up appreciable speed, and gradually increasing the distance to the landing spot.

 

[ILoveTiels]

Yup, practice, practice and more practice. Same way one gets to Carnegie Hall ( I've yet to make it so far). If you can, try doing shorter flights, so she can't build up appreciable speed, and gradually increasing the distance to the landing spot.

She's gotten perfect at landing but the moment I tried to switch up where she was landing she got really confused and kept trying to fly back to her usual spot no matter where I was getting her to fly from. She even tried to do a loop and fly backwards to land there. I think we need to find different rooms to practise in as well so she can practise different flight routes because the one she's decided on curves at the end. She can fly from my hand across my tiny bedroom to her cage as well though

 

[SailBoat]

Within the Amazon Forum, at the very top are two Sticky Threads. Open the one that Starts with: I Love Amazons --. Look for the Segment with a title like: Refledging an Adult Amazon. That segment will help greatly. FYI Teaching landing is best done in ones bedroom using a soft bed to land on which keep the fear level as low as possible. NOTE: this very large Thread is devoted to Amazons, but in many of the segments, one can simply replace Amazon with your Parrots species.

Building muscle mass is very important as it helps greatly.

You will also want to have your Parrot Step-up and the both of you walk the safe flight paths in your home, starting from the cage and working outwards using safe paths and landing zones. Once those are in place, start at the landing zone with a step-up and taking a safe path back. The more you so this the more your Parrot will use those pathways.

Flight feathers (both wing and tail) will continue to come in and will only go to help.
Once your Parrot is safely flying, Start teach Recall !! i.e. if your Parrot fly's out a path, once landed request a return to you or the cage. This is why you developed those return flights above.

 

[texsize]

She's gotten perfect at landing but the moment I tried to switch up where she was landing she got really confused and kept trying to fly back to her usual spot no matter where I was getting her to fly from. She even tried to do a loop and fly backwards to land there. I think we need to find different rooms to practise in as well so she can practise different flight routes because the one she's decided on curves at the end. She can fly from my hand across my tiny bedroom to her cage as well though

This does remind me of my Tiels when learning to fly.
The would want to land but not knowing how would circle and circle getting lower and lower until they crash into something.
only got 2 birds that were clipped and both knew how to fly before clipping

 

[JimsBrother]

Practice, indeed. Just be assured that Cockatiels have amazing flying skills once they get the hang of it. Something about BIG* wings on a small bird. My Bebe can hover like a hummingbird. My brother used to have Beebs' wings clipped because the bird would fly to places he shouldn't' be. I only let him out when I'm going to be in the room with him, so he stays within my sight.

* Sushi says so...

 

[PrimorandMoxi]

Golly gee willikers. I did not realize that Bebee was so freakin gorgeous.
He looks like he was painted with a splotchy brush.

 

[JimsBrother]

Golly gee willikers. I did not realize that Bebee was so freakin gorgeous.
He looks like he was painted with a splotchy brush.

That's not Bebe, it's Rosalindagg's Sushi displaying her impressive flight area. And yes, she is indeed beautiful.

 

[Mulligan]

Hi everyone

Just looking for some advice on helping my adult tiel become a stronger flier. Before she came to me she was clipped her whole life, but we've done training and she now had all her flight feathers again. We typically practise 2x a day, morning and evening. It looks like this: I extend my arm fully out and she sits on my hand. I count down and gently wave my hand up and down to the countdown, and then say Go. She flies off my hand across the room onto the target which is the counter top. She's getting quite good at this except the landing. About half the time she will clear the counter top and make it but the other half she either misses or crashes into it. I've laid down a blanket so she's perfectly fine but whenever she ends up on the ground she seems really lost and confused, like she's slipped into some kind of time warp... is there any way I can help her work on landing more or is this just something she has to figure out herself through repetition? I've tried to work on recall training and getting her to fly to me but currently we're stuck at the "slight stretch to step up" step of the matter as she's a bit skittish about such things.

Thanks in advance for the advice

How about a different landing target for a while until she gets her bearings. We had one once and he never learned how to land. He would fly in circles in our bedroom and then head for the drapes to stop himself. I would stand there and tell him to "Get down, right now" and he learned to say that, but never learned how to stop his flight without the drape. Good luck.