Flying Without Flying

All is going swimmingly in the flock this summer.

I have finally figured out how to exercise C. I was inspired by how they exercise clipped birds at Parrot Island Sanctuary, which I read about in Companion Parrot Quarterly: they hold his body and let him flap around the room while being held. They really seem to think they're flying! Here's the video I watched from their website of a woman flying an Amazon parrot this way.

A couple days ago, I tried it just like on the video, cupping C's body in my two hands and letting him fly, but I couldn't really get his body, so he'd often end up flapping out of my hands and landing on the ground, as I tried to run behind him at the same rate as his flapping. A lot of stop and start. He gets very excited when he's outside and desperately wants to fly. So when we were outside today, I decided to hold his body with just one hand and started running around the yard. Well, he did it! He started flapping his wings and kept going like he was flying! He even held his little feet back in a flight position! I was so proud of him. We did that a few times, then I realized he was looking pretty spent so we figured that's enough for one day. That's why he looks so sleepy in the photo.

I plan for us to do more flapping like this for as long as we can. I hope the summer's long -- I figured this out so late! Of course I will still do the flapping on hand but he can't sustain that very long because of his weak legs and feet and/or excitement, which means he often flaps/falls off my hand. Besides, this seems like much more fun for him, and better exercise for me too.

B has taken to the branch I set up outside as home base, and will often fly straight there when I say "Fly to perch". I'm also now able to encourage him to fly from my hand, to get exercise flying around a bit outside. Today was the first day where he's been able to launch from my hand, fly up, loop around, and land back on my hand. He seems to turn back around as soon as he's gone anywhere; that's how devoted he is to us (not really "us", of course, but just Bird C, really). When he lands elsewhere, on the roof, or in a spruce, he comes back almost immediately (within 1-2 minutes). Those were both today; he was very cute, hopping from branch to branch on a spruce until he had a clear shot back over to us. I couldn't actually see him, but I was circling counterclockwise around the spruce to see him, and he was hopping to circle in the same direction on the opposite side of the trunk, so I'd hear him and see the branches shake a bit with a flash of grey-black tail every now and then.

B loves the camera. When I'm shooting, he looks right at it and will even start serenading it sometimes. Today, I took a series of closeups from a high angle, and he was very agreeable, tilting his head up to eye the camera whenever I asked him to look up for the shot. What a star. He's even got the moody hooded brow.

Wondering what the birds are sitting on today in these photos? Me too! In the Spring, I collected some of the birdseed husks that they'd finished eating and scattered them in the garden, hoping it'd help break up the soil and keep it from impacting. Over the past few months, these grassy things have started growing. At first, I just thought they were grass and let them be. Then they started getting really tall really fast, and growing these seed heads that don't look like anything else I've ever seen in the wilderness of the yard. They're starting to mature from fresh green to seedy brown, and I think I can recognize the little seeds coming in. I'm wondering if they might be millet. Or if not millet, whatever those long pointy seeds in birdseed, that come with the round millet, are. Does anyone know?

Do I dare think I finally have a source of organically grown bird seed? I pulled up a clump of it to transplant to a pot with some flowering spinach, so that they can play with some living greens indoors, assuming they survive the transplant.