Can an adult bird be taught to fly?

[shanlung]

We have had Paco, a muloccan, for almost 10 years and I don’t think he ever flew. He’s been flighted the whole entire time and only would fly if he got really startled and he would typically crash right into the wall. However, very recently after we moved into a much bigger house where there’s a master bedroom that’s about 20x 40 feet wide, he will fly from the bed to his climbing net when he has to go to the bathroom, with a little encouragement that is. He still screams like he’s scared when he flies but he will do it. I guess we are slowly breaking ground? It hasn’t been easy though and I doubt he will ever be anything like the other birds who were properly fledged. It’s sad too, they have this amazing gift of flight and can’t had it :-(

Too many people are afraid of birdie crashing into walls. Too many birdies lost their wings because of those sights.
You see a human baby trying to walk and falling down. Will stopping the baby from walking in order not to see him/her fall do the baby any good? And not ever to let the baby walk for the rest of their life because you too afraid to see baby falling down?

The birdie flight muscles not there yet, and the neurons still wiring about for the birdie head to understand what is flight and what the wings are for.
For fear of seeing the crashing, birdie be forever be prevented from flying?

I so nearly succumbed to that , in which case the world would not have known of Tinkerbell, or Riamfada. In the 2000 when I started tihe Tinkerbell, almost every books on parrots
demanded the wings feathers to be cut. Forums then screamed at me that if I love my parrot, I got to CUT CUT CUT CLIP CLIP CLIP. I was thrown out of at least 6 birdie forums after they tarred and feathered me because I refused their advice I got to clip the wings or I did not love the bird at all.

I think I was partly responsible for the mind shift that birds do fly and to allow them to fly. At least in doors after the environment made safe for them. And of course, I did that outdoors too. Which earned me more rounds of tar and feathers.

In the wild, birdies will crash about in initial fledgling flights. Except they did that out of sight. I guess like the tree in forest if not seen or heard falling, the tree did not fall.
In the natural environment, they crash into leaves and branches which brake their crashing. Birdies can then hold on , take a few breaths and proceed to try again, each time getting better and better.
Until a light bulb goes off in their head and then HECK!! They realised what the wings are for and what the feathers do, and their muscles understood what and how they are to be used.
No way can you teach them as do you know how to fly in the first place with wings? But you can allow them to fly and set the conditions to minimise injuries to the birdie.

I written many times before the bird be allowed to fledge in a room where nets (or cloth curtains are hung) to break their crashes and allow them to hang onto something. I like a fool at the beginning rushed about with a pillow worried out of my mind Tinkerbell was going to kill herself. Luckily for me, she got the hang of it in a couple of very nerve wracking days. With the benefit of hindsight which I got in abundance through my innate stupidty, I know better what to do. I wrote that all over my blogs but I do not know where to find them now.

Bear in mind also the flights at the beginning will be slow, even if it seemed fast to you. To fly very fast, they need to have the muscles and the knowledge how to fly very fast. They will not have that at the beginning. That knowledge must come with time with skill of flying improving and improving. the chances of them dashing their brains out on the wall is there , but very very slim in those beginning days. Will be nil if you hang loose curtains in the flight room.

It will take but a couple of days or so, for them to get the hang of it. And then you can remove those curtains for the rest of their life.