Teaching 'Fly to Perch'

Think of a cue that you will use for 'fly to perch.' Get the bird on your hand. Then, there's two approaches I've used... The easiest way starts with a place where the bird flies to on their own, for whatever reason. I used a bookshelf that Phoebe liked to fly to. Stand a couple feet away, give the cue, "toss" the bird, and click/treat when
the bird lands on the perch. Gradually extend the distance. This is how I taught Phoebe to fly to a perch for the first time. It was almost too easy...... I can't promise it will work for anyone else, but it worked for us.

If your bird doesn't already fly to some particular place regularly, or if you want to generalize fly-to-perch, try this:

Stand a couple feet away from a perch, give the cue, put the bird on the perch (stepping, not flying), click, and treat.

Repeat this until the bird starts leaning toward the perch when you give the cue. At this point you know they bird understands the "cue -> perch -> treat" idea.

Then stand a couple feet further away, give the cue, step over to the perch and put
the bird down. Repeat a few times. When it's clear that the bird understands the game, they will start leaning toward the perch and stepping off your and as soon as you give the cue. At that point - not sooner - you can try tossing the bird to the perch, which should only be about a foot away. When the bird understands that game, you can start stretching out the distance.

With a bird that flies often, you can probably skip the 'step to perch' step and go right to flying, but I think the stepping phase is helpful. I still use it with Phoebe when I want her to fly to an unfamiliar perch. Otherwise she either misses the perch or hangs on tight and doesn't fly at all.
With both approaches, once Phoebe started flying to the perch it took less and less of a toss to get her flying. Now she jumps off my hand as often as not, and if she doesn't jump I just have to give her a tiny nudge to get her airborne. In the beginning I found that tossing Phoebe worked best if I held her so she was standing flat-footed on my hand. That way she was less likely to grip my fingers and hang on tight (if your bird's toes can reach around your whole hand, this hint isn't worth much ). With a bird that already flies to and fro, it shouldn't take much of a toss.

With a bird that has little or no history of flying around...I don't know... getting the very first flights is a challenge I haven't had to face yet. A friend of mine, Andrew, got his Macaw flying using the latter approach. Shatzi had little or no flight experience
when we all started meeting in a vacant building twice a week, but now when Andrew taps on something, Shatzi's wings go out, his head goes down, and he gets ready to go. It's really neat to watch.......Shatzi clearly knows the game and is really motivated to play.

People occasionally tell me that their bird won't fly to a perch, and just hangs on tight when they try to toss their bird to the perch. Imagine you're the bird. When you get tossed, where are you going to go? And why would you want to go there? If you don't have a nearby destination all picked out, and you don't have a reason to go somewhere, you might as well hang on tight.
But, if you know you'll get rewarded to going to the perch, then the toss is barely necessary because you were planning on going there anyhow.
So: get a clicker, get a treat, put the bird on your hand. Tap on the perch, make the bird step up onto the perch, click  when the bird climbs on, and then give the bird a treat. If you do this enough, you will probably notice that when you tap on the perch, the bird starts leaning towards the perch, wanting to go there. At that point it's not just the perch, it's the perch. It's where the bird wants to go. Then step back an arm's length from the perch. Put the bird on your hand, tap on the perch, and give the bird a gentle toss.

What happens?


© 2003 Nate Waddups