Flighted retrieve question??

[midlandhippy]

Hi all

Quick question is it possible to teach a parrot to retrieve an object from the air?

I know they can carry stuff whilst in flight and know larger birds of prey can do this. Are they capable?

Thinking of a Quaker parrot in-particular.

Thanks guys

[Michael]

Are you talking about flying to pick something up off the ground and bringing it back to you? Because I trained that to my parrot and it works very well. On the other hand if you're talking about throwing something up and having them catch it mid air, I highly doubt that. Their ability to predict and catch the object is more at question than the fetch concept. If you could hang the object such that it can easily pulled off, then maybe.

[midlandhippy]

Yeah i was thinking in mid air. Figured they might be able to do this as in the wild they would catch fly etc

xx

[felix11]

I tossed around this idea for a while last year - however, I think the answer is no, probably not. I've tried teaching my birds how to catch with zero success. It doesn't seem to be instinctual for parrots - they don't catch prey from the air, unlike raptors. I think that when they do eat insects it's off a tree.