Step 2: Make sure that your parrot is fetch trained. If it isn't, teach it to fetch before you start teaching the darts trick. If it is already fetch trained, just do a quick review to remind it what to do.

Step 3: Desensitize the parrot to the dart board and darts. Most parrots get scared of new stuff. The good news is that the more tricks you teach, the more the bird will get used to accepting new things. The best way to desensitize the bird to the dart board is to target it near the toy. Place the dart board on a table beforehand. Bring your parrot and set it on the table far from the toy. Get the bird into a rhythm targeting. Target it randomly in different directions and not strictly toward the darts or it may get suspicious. Target it around randomly but little by little, more and more toward the dart board. Let the parrot pay more attention to the targeting exercise and forget about the darts until you are able to target it right by the board at ease. It is better to take the time to do the desensitization exercise even if the bird didn't get scared than to scare the bird with the toy first and then try to change its mind.

Step 4: The Birdie Darts trick comes with 3 magnetic darts. You can set two extra ones aside for now and just use one dart. Give the dart to your parrot from one hand and then present your other hand and ask it to fetch the dart to your open palm. Using a clicker, click when the bird drops the dart in your hand and give it a treat. Positive reinforcement goes a long way!

Step 5: Now it's time to teach the parrot to put the dart on the board. Hold your open hand in front of the dart board and ask your parrot to fetch the dart to your hand. Get the bird used to fetching the dart to your hand near the dart board.

Step 6: Continue having the bird fetch the dart to your open hand in front of the dart board, but now pull your hand away just before the bird drops the dart. When the bird is about to drop the dart into your hand, pull your hand back and away. The bird will end up dropping the dart straight down but the magnetic dart will grab onto the dart board. Click the clicker when the dart ends up on the board and give your bird a treat so that it realizes that the purpose is to put the dart on the board.

Step 7: Teach the parrot to make a bullseye by rewarding less frequently when the dart is placed far from the center. When the bird puts the dart closer to center than previously, click and reward. However, if the parrot puts the dart far from center, ignore. As the parrot learns to put the dart closer to the center, become more demanding by rejecting times when the parrot puts the dart further away. Eventually it can learn to make a bullseye with the dart on the dart board.

You can place all 3 darts on the table and have the parrot fetch all of them onto the dart board for a full game of darts!

Here's a short tutorial I made with Kili to illustrate the key steps of the process:

You can even have your parrot fly with the dart from far away like a long distance cruise-dart.

Thursday November 15th, 2018

It's not only a thrill having my parrots fly in my yard, it's also great exercise for them!

Rather than a small free standing aviary, my entire yard is enclosed so that I could be there together with my parrots. This allows me full use of the yard space with or without the birds and it gives the birds a lot of space to fly.

Flying is by far the best form of exercise for a parrot. It not only works their wing muscles, but their entire body! They need to tuck their feet in, steer with their tail, adjust their feathers, user their mind, and of course breath and move blood quickly! It is only during flight that the parrots entire body is working up to its capacity.

However, don't expect that just because you put your parrot in a large enclosure that it will just fly. Parrots are generally pretty lazy and won't fly unless they really want to or there is danger. Of course in the wild, necessity is what gets parrots to fly many miles in search of food sources. At home, flight training using positive reinforcement will be the closest simulation to their natural ways while also building a bond with you.

Parrot Wizard Training Perches are the best way to get a parrot trained and accustomed to flying at home. Not only is it necessary to teach the parrot how to fly in a home environment but it is also essential to provide the physical therapy to get their muscles and systems strong enough to be able to fly effortlessly.

Then, the commands and methods used to train the parrot to fly indoors can be extended to large indoor spaces such as a gym or outdoors. However, it is imperative to have a back up safety measure when flying a parrot outdoors. When spooked, even well-trained parrots can fly away. So make sure that you do any outdoor flight in an aviary or with the use of an Aviator Harness as a safety net.

Although it may look effortless in the video, it is actually quite difficult to teach parrots to fly on command (especially outdoors). It takes weeks of consistent, and sometimes frustrating, training to get the parrots not only mentally in shape to fly but also physically. After a long winter restricted to indoor flying, it takes a bit of exercise before they can be good at flying longer distances again.

In this video, you can see how well Kili, Truman, and Rachel fly their daily exercise routines in my enclosed back yard flying area:

Thursday November 8th, 2018

Wondering how you can teach a parrot to play basketball? Here's an awesome trick to teach your parrot! This free trick training guide is about how you can train the Birdie Basketball trick to your parrot!

Nothing is as exciting as throwing a ball and having your parrot fly to get it and bring it back to dunk it in the basketball hoop! The height on the Birdie Basketball is adjustable so even smaller parrots like a green cheek conure can learn to do this awesome trick.

So here's a step by step guide on teaching a parrot to play basketball:

Step 2: Make sure that your parrot is fetch trained. If it isn't, teach it to fetch before you start teaching the basketball trick. If it is already fetch trained, just do a quick review to remind it what to do.

Step 3: Desensitize the parrot to the basketball toy. Most parrots get scared of new stuff. The good news is that the more tricks you teach, the more the bird will get used to accepting new things. The best way to desensitize the bird to the basketball toy is to target it near the toy. Place the basketball hoop toy on a table beforehand. Bring your parrot and set it on the table far from the toy. Get the bird into a rhythm targeting. Target it randomly in different directions and not strictly toward the basketball hoop or it may get suspicious. Target it around randomly but little by little, more and more toward the basketball. Let the parrot pay more attention to the targeting exercise and forget about the basketball until you are able to target it right by the hoop at ease. It is better to take the time to do the desensitization exercise even if the bird didn't get scared than to scare the bird with the toy first and then try to change its mind.

Step 4: The Birdie Basketball trick comes with 2 different basketballs. One is a realistic looking basketball and one is a training ball with a lot of holes. For now, put aside the realistic ball and use the easy to grab training ball instead. Give the training ball to your parrot from one hand and then present your other hand and ask it to fetch the ball to your open palm. Using a clicker, click when the bird drops the ball in your hand and give it a treat. Positive reinforcement goes a long way!

Step 5: Now it's time to teach the parrot to put the ball in the basketball hoop. Start by lowering the hoop down low. This will not only make it easier for the parrot to reach but also give you more room to hold your hand. Hold your open hand directly over the basketball hoop and ask the bird to fetch the ball. When the bird drops the ball in your hand, click the clicker and give a treat. This teaches the bird to bring the ball toward the basketball hoop.

Step 6: Continue having the bird fetch the basketball to your open hand above the hoop, but now pull your hand away just before the bird drops the ball. This way it will accidentally drop it into the basketball hoop when it really just intended to drop it into your hand. Click and reward so that your bird realizes that the goal is to drop the ball into the hoop! Keep practicing and progressively raise the hoop higher and higher so the parrot learns to stretch for a slam dunk. Finally, when the parrot has mastered the basketball trick, you can use the realistic basketball instead. Show the bird the single hole through the ball where it can grab it with its beak and you'll have an NBA allstar in no time!

Here's a short tutorial I made with Kili to illustrate the key steps of the process:

Thursday October 11th, 2018

On October 6/7 I had the pleasure of being the headline speaker at the 2018 Bird Paradise Parrot Palooza. The Parrot Palooza is the huge annual event with the biggest sale of the year at the Bird Paradise store.

Located in Burlington New Jersey, Bird Paradise is one of the largest bird stores in the US. They have an enormous selection of toys, bird food, and supplies to choose from. The annual Parrot Palooza event is one of the biggest parrot events in the country and the world. With over 2,000 attendees coming from far and wide, it's a parrot extravaganza like no other.

Now the first time I had gone to Parrot Palooza was back in 2010 when Truman was still a baby. Back then it was a smaller event and didn't have the enormous parking lot tent. I got to meet Dr. Irene Pepperburg from the Alex Studies and attend her talks. So now, 8 years later, it was my honor and pleasure to get to fill that same role as headline speaker at the Parrot Palooza as the Parrot Wizard.

What can I say? The birds were good. Kili did all of her tricks like a champ. Truman was a chatter box as usual. Rachel was big and pretty and drew a lot of praise. All three wore their Aviator Harnesses all day long and were ambassadors for how a pet parrot should safely go outside.

Countless people asked me "how did you get that harness on them!?" or exclaimed, "my parrot would never let me stick one on it." Every time my response was, "we don't get the harness onto the parrot, they put it on themselves." When the parrot is trained how to put on the harness and wants to put it on, it looks something like this:

Truman meets a Golden Conure

Michael presenting at Parrot Palooza

Parrotsrus with Curacao

Lori with Rachel

Lori, the one who adopted Santina from me, came to the event to help us out. Rachel and Lori quickly became friends. Lori really enjoyed the Palooza and said she was "still grinning from ear to ear... Beautiful friends. Beautiful Parrots. Great time!!" She was thrilled to meet people she had been following online and mentioned, "for me, I enjoyed meeting instagram people."

It was a thrill getting to meet so many fans at the event. I signed books and chatted with parrot owners. My presentations were routine but enthusiastically watched by huge audiences. Kili helped me demonstrate how exciting trick training can be and Truman and Rachel helped illustrate how parrots can be taught to play with their toys.

All in all, it was an exciting event, great food, wonderful participants, big sales, and an all around fantastic way for people to be excited about their pet parrots. Here's a video recap of all the Parrot Palooza action:

Friday August 3rd, 2018

Marianna and I recently took a trip to Pigeon Forge Tennessee. While visiting Gatlinburg, Pigeon Forge, and the beautiful Smokey Mountains, we had a chance to go to Parrot Mountain. Parrot Mountain is unlike any zoo or bird park you have ever seen!

Parrot Mountain is a one of a kind experience for parrot lovers. It is the only major bird park I'm aware of that focuses primarily on parrots. They do have a nice collection of other birds as well, but their focus on parrots is quite unique.

A visit to the park starts with some exhibits of various bird species. Then it takes you through a walk through flight aviary. But most exciting of all is the parrot feeding area. They have probably a hundred parrots out on stands that you can see up close and feed. Buy a handful of seeds from the vending machine for a quarter and then you can be the parrots' favorite visitor!

We got to see up close and experience too many different species to count but just a few of the more exotic ones included Sun Conure, Blue Crowned Conure, Patagonian Conure, Alexandrine Parakeet, Great Billed Parrot, African Grey, Cape Parrot, Eclectus, Scarlet Macaw, Military Macaw, Hyacinth Macaw, Moluccan Cockatoo, Sulphur-Crested Cockatoo, and Red Tailed Black Cockatoo. Marianna had a field day getting to feed and hold the female Red Tailed Black Cockatoo. She recalled how we got to see them in the wild in Australia, but not anywhere near as close!

Some of the parrots on exhibit were brought a long time ago from the wild, others were bred at Parrot Mountain, and others were relinquished. The park acts as a complete facilitator of parrots in the region. They breed, sell, display, and accept rescued parrots. You can see the babies for sale in their nursery building.

Parrot Mountain is famous for offering to have your picture taken with close to a dozen birds. I was amazed not only how cooperative and patient their photo-parrots were but also how well they all got along with each other. The woman who brings them over for photos can be seen walking with a dozen parrots hanging off her chewed up shirt from every side. It was almost as though their beak was a carabiner hook for clipping onto her shirt. She was truly a parrot taxi!

They have a lorikeet feeding aviary where you can have lorikeets fly up to you and sip nectar. Parrot Mountain also houses the "garden of eden," a secluded Christian exhibit in the forest covered country side. They also have a small cafe (with parrot on the menu) and a gift shop with lots of parrot related merch. All around a must-see sight for any parrot lover visiting the Pigeon Forge area in Tennessee and even a reason in itself to head out there.

Here's a video of my visit to Parrot Mountain including an interview with the parks owner: