thenightingaleable

Thanks so much for your suggestions, everyone! I'm hoping I can come up with some good activities (like Sterling did with the rope) to get Hero comfortable flapping and fluttering as part of play. Because I use a little "earthquake" (a slight jerk of the hand he's perching on) to discourage chewing on people, I'm going to have to be careful to make sure that Hero doesn't think he's done something wrong when he becomes unbalanced. Lots of praise and happy sounds will be involved. I'll keep you all posted!

Now that Hero's flight feathers have grown back in (and because he is still very resistant to the harness), I'm especially motivated to work on recall training. The trouble is, he's a very hesitant flier. This is understandable. He's been clipped pretty much the whole of his short life, and I don't know if his first owners let him experience flight when he first fledged. As a result, he's very, very clumsy in flight, and has a tendency to crash. Up until this week or so, he's only flown when startled. Lately, he's been randomly launching himself into space. His maneuvering is getting a little bit better. I've been trying to coax him to hop short distances, from a flat surface to my hand, a gap just slightly too great for him to cross without opening his wings. He has the general idea. He crouches, dances, opens his wings a few inches--and stalls, for minutes at a time, until he loses interest and wanders off to chew on the couch cushions, or the table, or whatever. Just now, after a few unsuccessful tries, I picked him up to take him to his stand, and he flew a few feet right to the top of his cage. (This is the second time I've ever seen him fly somewhere intentionally.) Did your greys find longer or shorter distances easier to tackle at first? How did you get them to make that first leap?

Hah! Karen, he did got for the keyboard, I just cut those bits out. He no longer tries to rip the keys off, but he's discovered that he can turn the music on and off by jumping on the keys. We have really generously sized rooms, but it's a pretty close fit! (Definitely good motivation to keep the cages super clean, though--I sleep practically right between them.)

Hero will give slight little wing flicks, like he's shuffling his primaries, when he's 'settling in' with a human he likes. Of course, he's happiest when he sneaking up onto the bookshelf to chew the covers off my books. If he's particularly happy with me, he'll sing, "Good boy! Good boy!" Like Inara said, whenever a bird is out looking for company, and trying to be part of the group or conversation, or getting into whatever you're doing, whenever they're trying to engage, you can be pretty sure they like what's going on, and want to experience more!

Hi, everyone! My name is Alyson--I'm a second-year college student, and I'm new around here. I adopted a young Timneh back in January; he is now about a year old, and an absolute delight. He is a confirmed male named Hero, and the brightest, most attentive bird I've ever met. I share a dorm room with Hero, a human room-mate, and a five-year old female white-faced cockatiel named Hamlet. Birds have been a significant part of my life for several years--I raised Hamlet in high school, but also kept colonies of finches and parakeets, and have some experience with falcons and birds of prey. Hero's previous owners had to get rid of him when they developed severe allergies to the dander. I was lucky enough to take him, and he was lucky to have a good start in life with people who cared very much about him, even though they ultimately had to give him up. Since them, I've been intensively socializing him, which has been going beautifully. He's a very popular bird in my dorm, and loves relaxing outside with other students. He steps and and down very well, turns around on command, waves, and will increasingly tolerate my handling his back, wings, neck, and feet. Harness training is going very, very slowly, but he will allow me to place the Aviator over his head and will stay still for about 10-20 seconds before getting fidgety. I'm hopeful that by the end of the summer, I'll be able to take him out on the harness, and start working on recall flight training. So, that's us! Here's a little video of Hero playing around with his blocks on my desk yesterday. Can't wait to get to know some of you better. [video=youtube_share;8wJsMwLi4fg]