Look up theadventuresofroku on instagram , they have 2 free flight Macaw ' s . They live in Aus and have a youtube channel as well and they talk about how expensive it actually is to train a bird for free flight , which is what you are talking about . The owner made an OCvJbHYUZpM explaining it all . He is very knowledgeable and his birds have been TRAINED to do this . He explains the process and its not cheap or easy and you need to have a lot of time and energy . He talks about all the horror stories about people thinking they know what they are doing and then losing their bird . Im certain what you are seeing are wild birds . There is no way you would be seeing a lot of free flight birds in Australia , the courses are majorly expensive and its the only way to accurately teach them how to free fly . You can ' t just teach recall , birds don ' t care about that . Also , there is no way you can leave it outside for HOURS , it could easily be snatched and killed by a bigger bird . I would suggest harness training instead . You can train birds with harnesses and take them outside with you on a leash . They can sit on your shoulder or a stick or whatever but they can ' t get away since you are holding a lead . In summary Yes , you can train parrots to free fly but its usually only a few minutes a day , not hours . The courses are super expensive and there is always risks involved . I would highly suggest harness training instead so your bird can ' t be attacked and killed by a bigger bird of preycat ect . EDIT this still has massive risks and you need to be pretty willing , if not the bird is a goner .