Perch potatoes. I find if you give them the room and push it usually works. Least with the macaws.I have always expected a lot out of myself and family. I push, sometimes too much to do more. I looked at Koko the other night while she was preening and said to her, " You could put some effort into moving more."
If possible set your bird down & then pick him up by grasping him on both sides, like picking up a box, then toss him.
Burt flies beautifully from where ever he is but for some reason he totally hates me throwing him off my arm like we see on so many free flying videos and he does the death grip like you say Frankie does, if I grab him like Toy suggests in the post above he thinks it is awesome fun when I gently throw him, usually it is just a low toss onto the couch or bed but we also do the high toss up into the air. Make everything a game and of course give him tonnes of praise for any tiny bit of progress.
@Shezbug do you have or can you get a video of Burt doing it for us pretty please?
I’ll try to remember when we get back to that kind of interaction if I can find a way to set my phone up to catch it. He’s still very unpredictable at the moment so we’re having minimal physical contact and I don’t do anything that encourages excitement or he gets impulsive and starts being silly.
Boo also does the death grip thing. Watching her fly, even if it's a short flight she's handled many times before, she generally takes a moment or two to assess the gap and plan her maneuver. If the gap is bigger, I've seen her sit there for four or five minutes screwing up her courage to take the leap, squatting into flight position and turning her head different angles to assess the distance (and sometimes, even with all that prep, she still won't hit her mark). Sometimes she'll even do a couple test-flaps of her wings before taking off like "yep, okay, those are working". There have been a couple times where she just did it, BOOM! without that careful preparation. It's delightful and surprising when it happens.
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Yep. Tell her from me she is absolutely beautiful with them huge wings
