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My parrots regularly fly towards strangers

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My parrots regularly fly towards strangers

Postby Darko » Thu Jan 04, 2018 7:14 pm

Hi everyone, I hand raised two male peach faced lovebirds and they are fully flighted. I let them every day outside, while I ride my bicycle they fly next to me or land on my shoulder. Both of them are amazing fliers and hawks and crows try to catch them sometime, but they know to manoeuvre very well and always manage to out fly them and come back to me for protection. But I have a big problem my parrots land on strangers regularly, and if they don't know that is my parrot they try to catch it and take it away. The second problem that I have with my parrots is that they are too curious and sometime when I ride bike my parrots will take off and enter someone's apartment, if window is open. And people will close window , usually because they think that is escaped parrot. So I have to enter a building find the apartment and retrieve my bird. Please help me how to teach them not to land on strangers and not to enter other people home?
Last edited by Darko on Wed Apr 18, 2018 1:16 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Darko
Lovebird
 
Gender: This parrot forum member is male
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Location: Belgrade
Number of Birds Owned: 2
Types of Birds Owned: peach faced lovebird
Flight: Yes

Re: My parrots regularly fly towards strangers

Postby Michael » Thu Jan 04, 2018 9:30 pm

You can't. This is why you will always have problems doing things and eventually you won't be so lucky. Unfortunately it is not possible to have parrots be loyal and reliable like dogs. Be careful.
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Michael
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Re: My parrots regularly fly towards strangers

Postby Darko » Thu Jan 04, 2018 10:35 pm

Hi Michael, For two years already I let them to fly free every day at least 2 hours, sometimes we stay outside all day and 85 % of the time they are perfect. I ride bicycle and they follow me and fly next to me or rest on my shoulder while we go through the city or the park or ride next to the river. Often they fly off to chase other birds or other birds ; chase them and when they get tired they come back or when I whistle they come. But sometimes they enter someone's else flat or land on someone who is 100 meters away so I have to rush over there and let them know that is my bird and ask them to let it go. Is so stressful. Thank you for your answer I will just free fly them in a park or when I go outside city in nature I guess this way of free flight that I was practicing is to risky
Darko
Lovebird
 
Gender: This parrot forum member is male
Posts: 32
Location: Belgrade
Number of Birds Owned: 2
Types of Birds Owned: peach faced lovebird
Flight: Yes

Re: My parrots regularly fly towards strangers

Postby Pajarita » Fri Jan 05, 2018 11:35 am

I already replied to the same question on the other posting but, my dear, you can't free fly lovebirds, period. It doesn't matter if it's in a park or on a street, it cannot be done forever successfully. Your birds are only now becoming adults [and that's the ONLY reason why you've been able to do this until now] and they will fly away to find a mate soon. You will lose them.
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Re: My parrots regularly fly towards strangers

Postby Darko » Fri Jan 05, 2018 5:54 pm

Hi, thank you for your advice and reply.My parrots are 2 years old now. I think that they are mature lovebirds now. My lovebirds are hand raised and totally imprinted on humans. My parrots think that I am their partner, and they are strongly attached to me. I don't think that my parrots will fly away ever. They have an incredible recall response and they almost always come back when I whistle. Yes, I had plenty of dangerous situations where I almost lost them because they enter someone's flat or landed on stranger (far away from me) But I take them almost every day outside and they have bean chase by dogs, common kestrel, crows, flock of rook and flock of swallows and despite all events they are still here with me. I don't think that I would have better results with the bigger species of parrots. But I will probably buy Eclectus parrots and practice with him everything what I learnd training my lovebirds. Looking forward to apply my training and would love to teach him to fly with me when I fly with my paraglider because I don't think that lovebirds are smart enough to do that, but I hope that Eclectus will be able to do that because it was already been done with hawks and they call it parahawking.
Darko
Lovebird
 
Gender: This parrot forum member is male
Posts: 32
Location: Belgrade
Number of Birds Owned: 2
Types of Birds Owned: peach faced lovebird
Flight: Yes

Re: My parrots regularly fly towards strangers

Postby Darko » Wed Apr 18, 2018 1:27 pm

Every time I took my parrots out, I asked strangers to move their hand quickly towards my parrots as if they wanted to catch them and to scream and chase them... This tactic was successful, my parrots will never ever again try to land on the other human being and they will only land on me... So now I can take them anywhere even to the market or public transport.
Darko
Lovebird
 
Gender: This parrot forum member is male
Posts: 32
Location: Belgrade
Number of Birds Owned: 2
Types of Birds Owned: peach faced lovebird
Flight: Yes

Re: My parrots regularly fly towards strangers

Postby liz » Sat Apr 21, 2018 8:48 am

I know I try things that others do not approve of but I would try a long leash with the flying harness. They would be able to fly with you but not get away from you.
Just my 2 cents.

Those little birds look like a juicy morsel to preditor birds.

There was an owl hitting my sun room window. He was trying to get himself a cockatiel until he knocked himself out. He came to and never returned.
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liz
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Re: My parrots regularly fly towards strangers

Postby Pajarita » Sat Apr 21, 2018 9:54 am

The thing is that asking strangers to scare them away so they only feel safe going back to their owner would end up killing them if they ever get lost - which is always a distinct probability with free-flying birds. Because a captive-bred bird needs humans for water and food and if they are trained to distrust all humans except their owner, they would lose the only chance they have of surviving...
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Flight: Yes

Re: My parrots regularly fly towards strangers

Postby Darko » Sat Apr 21, 2018 3:43 pm

My parrots will still land on strangers, but only if they look similar to me... they will choice male with a short hair similar height and build as me... And they know that there is a planty of food in the park (especially now when it's spring time in Belgrade) My lovebirds will eat regularly; cherry blossoms, grass seeds, grass, flowers and some fruits from the local shrubs...
Darko
Lovebird
 
Gender: This parrot forum member is male
Posts: 32
Location: Belgrade
Number of Birds Owned: 2
Types of Birds Owned: peach faced lovebird
Flight: Yes

Re: My parrots regularly fly towards strangers

Postby Pajarita » Sun Apr 22, 2018 12:32 pm

I am afraid that you are overestimating captive-bred birds survival skills... Parrots are not instinctual feeders like all precocial birds are, they are altricial and need to learn survival skills from their parents so pet birds don't have any. So unless your birds grew up with their parents eating the buds and flowers from the same park you mention, they would not know to eat them but, even if they did, they would, most likely, die of dehydration before they die of starvation and, if they got lost in the winter, they would die of exposure the very first night. And, even if they did find water and food, predators would kill them [no flock]. It takes years and a few generations of raising parrots bred from captive stock in a preserve in their natural habitat, teaching them to eat their natural diet by professionals [and aided by wild parrots living in the same territority] to be able to end up with a few pairs that make it on their own.

We all like to believe that pet parrots would make it when they get lost but unless they find a human soon after, they all die. I remember reading the story of this guy in the UK that had an African grey which he took out for walks almost every day for 25 years down the same path next to a beach. One day, out of the blue, the bird got spooked and took flight [something he had never done before]. The owner looked and looked and looked and finally, on the fourth day, he found him dead on the same beach they walked by on every walk they took - he had died of dehydration just a short walk from his own home.
Pajarita
Norwegian Blue
 
Gender: This parrot forum member is female
Posts: 18701
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Number of Birds Owned: 30
Types of Birds Owned: RoseBreasted too, CAG, DoubleYellowHead Amazon, BlueFront Amazon, YellowNape Amazon, Senegal, African Redbelly, Quaker, Sun Conure, Nanday, BlackCap Caique, WhiteBelly Caique, PeachFace lovebird, budgies,
Flight: Yes

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