Articles About Flight Training

The following links contain discussion by Chris Biro of subjects related to training parrots for flight. Chris mainly focuses on flight outdoors though on occasion does mention aspects that relate to indoor flight only. This page is under construction and Chris is currently adding or editing the material on a regular basis. Most of the articles listed here are written by Chris Biro, who retains full copyright protection for the content therein.

At the bottom of this page are links to other authors about flight.

You may want to join Chris Biro's Freeflight email list at yahoogroups where people from all over the world discuss living with and training flighted birds. You may also want to join the sister list for photos of flighted birds. See links on left side of this page.

A Word About Information Sources Contains discussion and links about questionable resources on the internet. New Oct 09

Chris Biro's Presentation at the 2009 AFA convention "Importance of Flight and the Freeflying Lifestyle" is now available on DVD from the AFA. To order your copy go to AFA and scroll down the page to # 16. New Nov 09

Selecting The Species To Fly Contains discussion related to selecting parrot species for freeflight. New March 2010

Basic Flight Training Contains a general outline of steps used to train freeflight. Includes some discussion of Targeting.

Styles of Flying Contains discussion of definitions of different ways people fly their birds.

Positive Punishment or Negative Reinforcement? Contains discussion of how to correctly identifying each of the four quadrants of Operant Conditioning. Updated Jan 2010

Variable or Differential Reinforcement Contains discussion of how often to reinforce behavior during training.

Clicker Training Contains discussion of how to use a clicker properly. New Jan 2010

Click & Treat Contains discussion of how to keep a clicker a powerful tool. Also discussed are primary and secondary reinforcers. New Feb 2010

Target Training Contains general outline of the value and uses of targeting and how to start this training.

Indoor Recall Training Contains general outline for starting with a baby bird and training it for cued recall responses.

Building Interest In Food Rewards Contains discussion of issues related to getting a bird to work for food as reinforcers.

Empowerment vs Coercion Contains discussion of various issues related to granting parrots power in their lives.

To The Perch & Back Again Contains discussion of issues relating to training the game of "flying back and forth to a perch."

A Little Motivation Is A Good Thing Contains discussion about issues relating to Motivation and Getting Behaviors.

Stimulus Control Contains discussion relating to establishing good stimulus control.

Hanging Out Time & The Matching Law Contains discussion about training issues relating to letting the birds have free time outdoors and still be able to recall them down.

Weighing The Risks Contains discussion about evaluating the risk factor of freeflying parrots outdoors.

Hawk Identification, Contains sources of information for identifying hawks.

Parrot Flight Skill Levels Contains discussion of examples of trained domestic parrot flight skills.

The Difference Age Makes Contains discussion of some of the issues that make a difference when training a young bird at fledging age as compared to one year or more.

To Harness or Not Contains discussion of some issues related to the use of a harness on a flighted bird.

Hand-Feeding Babies For Flight Training contains discussion of issue relating to what age is the right age to get a baby for training.

The Sunset Roost contains discussion of why parrots often will not come when called after sunset.

Moab April 2007 Contains photos and link to article about the Winging It Live seminar of April 2007.

Moab April 2008 Contains description of the events of 5-8 April 2008 in Moab Utah.

Best In Flock Interview with Chris Biro. Discusses how Chris got into freeflight training and more.

Parrot Chronicles Article with Chris Biro Contains a discussion of the pros and cons of training freeflight for parrots.

Links to Other Authors About Freeflight

Chris Shank talks about her freeflying experience.

Free Birds Article by Carla Thorton Discusses how some people are keeping and training flighted parrots. Chris Biro is quoted many times.

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