When not racing, my flighted birds are hanging by a toe playing "king of the twig" or playing with me. Several of my conures and macaws love the elastic tie I use to keep my long hair in a pony tail.

Better communicators
Flying also gives birds the chance to vocalize appropriately. For the flighted parrot, keeping in contact with the other members of the flock is crucial to survival. Contact calls serve as homing beacons to keep the group oriented and together, less susceptible to predators.

I cannot help but wonder if this is also a part of how birds locate mates in the wild. Yell loudly enough and someone of the right interest might come investigate you as a potential mate option, who knows? How frustrating would it be to spend your life alone in a cage yelling in hopes of attracting a mate, but never getting a response?

By comparison, my flighted parrots seem to have more advanced communication skills than my grounded birds. My flyers use their voices and calls in a completely different way, reserving their loudest calls for specific purposes, such as signaling immediate danger. Could this difference also have an effect on the mental fitness of a clipped parrot?

Managing the hawk threat
In fact, I wonder if the ability to fly well would ease another psychological problem pet parrots may have: fear of physical harm. Parrots have an instinctive fear of objects that slowly circle or fly across the sky. I have watched way too many domestically raised and clipped birds react to the slow circling hawk or airplane visible off in the distance through a nearby window.

What effect does it have on the pet parrot to have these fears but not be able to respond appropriately? Is it possible that each time they see such a threat they feel fear and helplessness?

The free-flying parrot, on the other hand, knows it can effectively deal with such threats as long as it stays in top physical fitness, practices evasive maneuvers, and remains mentally alert. I have watched my flyers successfully out-fly hawk attacks on almost a dozen occasions. Today when they see a hawk, they often take off screaming wildly and circle in the direction of the hawk, many times causing it to leave the area.

Can these fears be eliminated in the pet parrot's life? I suspect not. To lose the means of building confidence over these fears could be difficult to live with at minimum and could ultimately create serious mental disorders.

Janis the green-wing macaw was the first bird Chris Biro taught how to free fly.

Fear of falling
In a less dramatic example, it is obvious to me that none of my free-flyers have the slightest fear of falling. They know that they can just thrust open their wings and fly to safety.

My clipped birds are very meticulous and careful climbers. They often take great effort to climb where other parrots would simply hop, suggesting they have in fact developed a strong sense of the fear of falling.

How many times have we seen a clipped parrot startle and leap from a perch only to fall like a rock? Injuries to the keel, legs or feet must hurt. Yet instinctive responses to fear often cause birds to leap anyway. What kind of psychological conflicts does this create for them?

But most people don't think about these issues. Usually, when debating whether to fly or not, people talk about the dangers of hawks, cars, neighbors, toilets, windows, open doors, hot stoves and flying into walls. Hawks are probably the only item on the list that have any real significance.

For instance, I have never seen my guys even come close to a car - but I have watched them successfully maneuver right through the spokes of a moving Ferris Wheel. It's certainly possible for a flighted parrot to fall into an open toilet or crash into wall or closed window, but not probable for a truly skilled flyer. Usually it's a problem only for novice flyers, and they are flying so slowly they are not seriously injured.

If a flight-trained parrot escapes out an open door or window, it will be far easier to recover than any partially clipped parrot. In fact, the latter is the hardest to recover. It is not as good at controlling its direction and speed and is in poor physical condition compared to regular flyers. It has no idea what "Come here Polly" means, whereas the flight-trained parrot understands the meaning of a recall signal, at least to some degree.

I wonder how many accidents have happened specifically because a bird could not fly. The only other bird that I have lost doing my bird show was also a Senegal parrot, named Bandit. Bandit was killed in front of a live audience when a stray dog ran up to his perch. Bandit tried to fly to safety but he was clipped. Instead I had to pry poor Bandit out of the mouth of this Boston terrier. He died in my hands a few moments later. Had Bandit been able to fly, he would have survived that experience.

The reality is that clipping a bird's wings has its own set of risks. All parrot owners must evaluate their conditions and skill levels and decide what is best for their birds.

Train - or clip
So how easy is it to teach a parrot free fly? It varies with the individual bird and owner. I do know one thing: Training is not an option; it's required. Just letting the bird's feathers grow out is not enough. In fact, a bird with full wings and no training will likely eventually become a lost bird. I believe that every bird owner should either train or clip. Even indoor flyers, in my opinion, should be trained as if they are expected to be flown outdoors someday - because you never know when they might escape.

I also believe that, even though I think free flight is the ultimate in the pet parrot experience, not every pet parrot nor every parrot owner is a candidate for training.

For one thing, I generally discourage people from attempting to train adult birds for flying outside. I train only babies, just before they are weaned, and I choose my students carefully. Many adult birds can learn to fly, but they learn much more slowly, which exposes them to more risks. It can take an adult bird months to learn what a fledgling picks up in a matter of minutes.

For most pet parrots, I would much rather see their owners build large outdoor flights or encourage their birds to fly indoors, especially the smaller birds, which can actually gain some benefit. It's tough for larger birds such as macaws to accomplish much flying indoors. By going unclipped, they might actually lose more of their freedom than they gain.

Perhaps the greatest benefit of freeflight is how it forces one to become a better bird trainer. One cannot live with a flighted parrot by the same rules that one lives with a clipped parrot. It is all too easy to force a clipped parrot to endure all manner of injustices that the flighted bird would simply fly away from to avoid.

Suddenly, the owner must be more mindful of how interactions will affect the attitude of the parrot. No longer are the human's needs or interests necessarily paramount. Instead, cohabitation becomes a game played by equals. In truth, the clipped pet parrot would benefit greatly from such improved relations, too.

I see better training as the greatest gift that freeflight proponents, as a group, have to offer aviculture today. When you free fly, you simply have no choice but to learn better handling methods, such as clicker training (a whole other article) - or you lose your bird. Just as in the dog community, we only have to learn to apply what science has already discovered about positive reinforcement.

No going back
Most people who have successfully trained a flighted parrot say there is no going back. The freeflight experience is truly one of those "must do to really understand" experiences.

In the end, I believe that owners of freeflighted parrots will have more to offer than an improved life for their own birds or themselves. I believe that freeflight trainers can eventually raise the standards of how all parrots are trained and kept.

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