Free-Fly Tuition (Macaw)

[Todd]

Hello,

I have a five-month-old macaw who has discovered his wings! He has a very good recall and co-ordinated flying.
I'm looking for some tuition and potentially barn space to help him learn the skills for free-fly?

Can you suggest any trainers or training centres in South East Essex, or places in UK we can travel to.

Thank you,
Tom

 

[DizzyBlue]

To my knowledge there are none
Get a really good aviator harness with a long line.
You need to bond strongly with your bird and training can begin at home by getting your bird to fly to you.
It's all about repetition and bonding.
Your bird is a baby so it's going to be a while.
Youngster rarely are able to learn how to fly downwards hence lots get them stuck in trees!

 

[Wera]

Friend of friend trained his, I am gonna try to find out for you as I know he was taking some kind of course, but as DizzyBlue said you need lots of bonding and indoor flying training, harness training is great idea ( I think that’s how my friend’s friend was starting with his parrot) you don’t know how your parrot will react to outdoors ( and you don’t know how he will react to harness itself, especially that you can’t just put harness on parrot he needs to get used to it) I don’t have macaw and my parrots don’t free fly but when weather is nice I take them to the garden in travel cages…looking on my 2 indian ringnecks, we got Blu in winter so I had plenty of time to build some bond with her, teach her few things and it was never an issue to get her into travel cage and sit for a bit in the garden, then we adopted another ringneck last July so for me it was obvious it’s nice weather we are going out… but she hated it in fact first few times she wouldn’t even move in her travel cage but I thought she will get used to it… well she didn’t instead she started screaming and just pacing, so I screwed up the whole experience for her, because I was stubborn and assumed she will understand my reason for taking her outside… so in the end I stopped taking her outside and went back to basics and it’s fine now she doesn’t mind but still I don’t take her out for long periods of time, looking from perspective I still feel kind of ashamed of myself as taking into account all I knew about Bluey I shouldn’t push on her when I did, we didn’t have much relationship, she didn’t understand why she couldn’t be at her old house, everything was new and then I was tricking her into travel cage and taking to unknown simply instead of creating enjoyable time I stressed her, once we took step back things got much better… in general with Bluey it was lots of taking step back.., she screamed like mad for many months… now I think she got better or we got used to it…but I didn’t have crazy screaming for long time since ages when few months back she could scream for 5 hours straight for reasons I never figured( we figured few but not all) just one day she sat in her usual screaming spot but started to talk instead of screaming…

 

[DizzyBlue]

Your a star @Wera

 

[Todd]

George Macaw is quite happy with the harness and we go out every day - usually we go for a lunchtime walk and sit in the park to get sunshine on his feathers. His recall is very good, although he often comes at me without warning expecting a treat; but I guess that my fault as his call word is "George" and I walk in and say "Hello George".

He is very anxious and keen to explore, but will not go far from me! He is building confidence with my friend who also takes him out with his harness, exploring new sounds, smells and people

 

[JackAndRob]

"The Adventures of Roku" is an Aussie YouTuber featuring a few free-fly birds. The guy that runs it swears by a course created by an American who I think is called Chris Biro. Try libertywings.com. The course is done remotely - Skype or similar. Maybe worth looking up.

The YouTube channel "Mikey the Macaw" features a couple of free flight Macaws in the UK. Not sure what course they followed. Might be worth contacting them for details.

 

[DizzyBlue]

KevH free flies his macaw
As did member BigBlue but haven't seen him online in years
Freeflyers used to stay somewhat "off grid" they got fed up with people having a go at them there are a few group scattered across the net could perhaps seek out a good club? Although not entirely sure how you would grade them as good
we did link to a few peeps who popped videos up see if I can find them but they are old videos....

@KEV H

 

[DizzyBlue]

Try this thread .... but its old but may give you some direction.
Free Flying | The Parrot Club

 

[DizzyBlue]

That's another thing! Stinkie can be contentedly perching on my shoulder or wherever we're sitting down with no intention of flying off, then a flock of pigeons takes off somewhere and he's off! And if he wasn't harnessed I wouldn't see him again!

I'm not about to pretend that harness flying is the same as free flight, not in my wildest dreams, but it's a pretty good compromise and it allows my bird to experience the great outdoors without giving me a mental breakdown.

Mad respect to the free fliers though. If I could I would.

This is one of our moderators birds Stinkie the cockatiel on an aviator harness (flying high at rainbow bridge bless) but Essie used to put up some awesome videos and pictures of them together visiting places together but with an aviator harness on with a long line. Which I dare say is going to be the way for you to commence training.

 

[Wera]

Just found out from friend so it was Liberty Wings course what her friend did, apparently there is someone now in UK in Scotland who finished this course too and now is doing classes online https://soaringwingstraining.co.uk/

 

[Wendy Cooper-Wolfe]

I think I've seen libertywings courses on facebook pages on free flying.
Dora would never wear her harness (I think k hubby was too pushy when he first tried her with it). He used to let her out when he was with her in our home in Kent, but I didn't know about it at the time .
She comes out free with us at our little house in the woods, and has flown very high into the tall poplar trees there but always keeps in sight and luckily can always be called back. I am never relaxed while she is pottering around though!
While she is strongly bonded to both of us we haven't yet let her come on our shoulders into the garden in this house, lots of trees but she needs to be well habituated to the whole area before we might be comfortable letting her out of her "garden" cage.