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Second Update on Zephyr Learning to Fly

Nostromo

Walking the driveway
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7/25/18
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Hello again! My ladybird has been making steady gains since I posted last August about her journey towards flight. We moved, which slowed her down a bit as she adjusted to the new surroundings, but it's a bigger and more open indoor space. We also bought bamboo bead curtains to cover both doors to help reduce risk of her flying away.

In terms of her flight skills, she is slowly but steadily improving! She now can fly across the room to her cage - she's quite comfortable flying from a hand or other object to her cage if she can see it. She can turn around mid air and go back the way she came, which was impressive to see. She still struggles with landing and descending. She also has a weak grip with her claws due to an old injury so she's nervous about landing on new surfaces. But today - huge progress!!! She flew to my hand for food for the FIRST TIME! She worked her way up to it with lots of fluttering, whining and pacing, before - floop! - off she went. I caught her and she devoured that much desired almond. She did this once more before she flew from couch back to cage to eat some pellets. Getting her to land on a hand has been a real challenge, so this is huge!!! I'm starting to envision her as a fully flighted bird - able to confidently get around her home with her wings. I've already noticed that she is less afraid of being put down in new places or close to the ground now that she knows she can fly back to her cage if she wants to.

Once she's mastered landing on hands, I want to start training her a take a flight harness. Then she can go for little trips with us to our yard or with my partner to the garage office.
 

Zara

♥❀Livin´ in Lovebird Land❀☼
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Fantastic update! So happy to hear you are making so much progress. Yes, landing on hands is huge! :starshower:
Good luck with the harness, remember to condition her to it first by just leaving it around, you could even start doing that now, just so she sees it in the room :)
 

Fergus Mom

Biking along the boulevard
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Yaaaaay! We're all clapping here... hands and wings! :thewave:
 
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