i have been able to succesfully teach my bird new commands, including the wait command, even though he is five years old - I agree with marie, the older birds still learn well, its just that it may take them a tad bit longer. but i would venture to guess that an extremely motivated adult bird can learn just as fast as a young bird, maybe faster if they are used to a lifetime of training. I think the birds learn that learning new things is fun when they provided regular training sessions as part of their lives, and this creates a whole new mindset in the older bird - it creates a bird that is really just supermotivated to learn new tricks.
also -
pennyandrocky wrote:i taught my to fly when he was 16 and trained him for outdoor freeflight when he was almost 20.
pennyandrocky, after learning from another post of yours what this poor bird went through in his earlier years before you rescued him, this brought tears to my eyes. what a wonderful caregiver you must have been for him.