Well I’ve always been a non-conformist.
When I was a young teenager I’d head off on a Saturday afternoon after school sport
to buy pigeons from Paddy’s Markets at Redfern.
And the funny thing is, it’s actually right
here at Carriageworks where I used to come.
It used to be Paddy’s and they’d sell
all different sorts of things, including these pigeons.
And I’d head out on the bus and the train for
the sole purpose of rescuing these birds from the cramp confines of the cages in which they
were being sold from within the markets. And a lot of them were being sold from within the markets and a lot of them were being sold
as food to eat.
And if not the markets, I’d head out to
a pigeon fancier’s place and buy some more exotic looking birds
that were being bred to compete against one
another in pigeon shows.
And I guess what appealed to me was the idea of being
able to train them to home and allow them to fly freely
without the restrictions of the cages.
And the idea of this was basically it was an idea that
made me feel good but it wasn’t at the expense
of the pigeons either and you know it was generally
when I was supposed to be studying or doing schoolwork.
But I found it much more fascinating to build
this flock of homing pigeons and the whole process allowed
for the noticing of different character traits and idiosyncrasies
of the individual birds.
It might be something you wouldn’t even consider
pigeons to have but living with them in such
close proximity and tending them on a day to day
basis I was able to notice this.
I was also able to notice just how much poo pigeons are capable of doing within a confined space.
[audience laughter]
Which just so happened to be my parent’s backyard.
But they were always pretty supportive of my interests
and, you know, my dad had kept pigeons in his childhood
and then again into his adult life during my childhood,
so I guess they’d rubbed off on me.
By the time I started collecting the birds Dad no longer
had his pigeons and I wanted to recreate the relationship
he had with them and build this bird wonderland
around me and umm, I didn’t see anything wrong with my obsession.
It was a distraction that I felt I could justify through what
I believed to be a noble purpose and you know it was for
a good cause and not at the expense of the pigeons.
And, you know, a sort of symbiotic relationship existed
between us where I enjoyed them and they relaxed me
and I was and they were able to live in an environment
that I had provided for them and breed and grow in a fairly
uninhibited way and, you know, I guess it was this need,
in a way I was escaping my own reality by helping them
escape theirs and it was this need to escape that we both
had in common and in order I guess to reach our higher
goal or potential we both need to be set free to fly in our
own direction.
But obviously it was not going to be something that I could
rely on to support myself as, as a career, um you know,
it just wasn’t going to happen or was it?
Well the thing is, the irony is I still do it and the trick was I just
needed to be able to turn what I initially thought what was
this escape from reality and be able to accept it as an alternate one.
And the thing is I’m now 34 years old and I work as an avian
behavouralist and although there’s not a great call to train
a 200 strong flock of homing pigeons,
[audience laughs]
there is a cause to train people who keep companion parrots as pets.
In an attempt to better the lives of these animals living in captivity
and people will sometimes say to me, you know when are you
going to get a real job mate?
Or is this all you do?
But honestly I couldn’t think of anything more real and rewarding
than being able to affect the lives of these often misunderstood
highly intelligent creatures that have the potential to live for
80 years or more.
It’s, you know, birds have helped me find my place in life and
I sort of feel it’s my moral obligation to help them where I can,
and to this day I’ll go to Bondi Junction.
Those, you know, those pigeons you see hobbling around the
streets of Sydney, you know, the ones that have often got toes
missing or sometimes they’ve only got a stump to walk on.
But I’ll stop and try and help them and take the string off
if that’s caught around their toes or what not because I feel
pigeons have been the roots in what I teach people and
I’ll always have a strong admiration and connection to them
for that reason.
And the area in which I specialise as an avian behavouralist
is loosely known as free flight and it’s basically training
a captive bird or a companion bird to train, to fly freely in an
outdoor environment and it’s based on a bird’s natural instincts
to form a home range and also their instincts in the case of parrots
to form strong social bonds with one another and it generally
takes about 3 months to train a bird for free flight providing
I’m training a bird which I consider to be a blank canvas.
It takes one month to establish a rapport with the bird,
the second month I like to build it’s confidence up in flying
and I’ll do that in an indoor environment initially.
And the third month is de-sensitising it to an outdoor
environment in which I intend flying it in.
And when I talk about a blank canvas I mean a bird that
hasn’t been exposed to unnatural condition behaviours
that are going to affect it’s overall, umm, you know,
being able to go out and fly in an outdoor environment.
And such things that would effect that would be things
like over socialising with humans or the development of anxieties that they may have formed through
an inability to fly and that’s often the case with companion
parrots because they are often bought at a crucial
developmental time in their life with already clipped wings,
and this becomes the accepted way of keeping them without
question.
But I believe for a bird to develop into both a physically
and mentally well balanced creature, it needs to be able
to act upon these instincts in a natural a way as possible.
And flight’s often one of these neglected instincts,
but through flight a bird is able to develop confidence,
self-confidence and is able to express itself amongst a whole
lot of other things, umm, but I like to call, "free flight".
I like to call it, "thinking outside of the cage" because one,
it’s exactly that, I’m taking birds outside into an outdoor
environment. And I’m flying them and also it challenges the mainstream
way of keeping companion parrots.
For me thinking outside of the cage, it’s allowed me to tap
into this ah, another dimension of, in a way, of keeping birds.
Because, you know, if I had been able to develop these
connections with birds that I would not have been otherwise been able to make
if I had gone down the straight and narrow,
I suppose, but, um, you know, It’s when birds don’t have
the ability to access these natural instincts in the natural way
that things can often take an irreversible turn for the worse
and they can develop psychological disorders, um, that we
often see as inappropriate forms of behaviour.
But there are actually appropriate forms of behaviour in
response to the inappropriate ways in which we have kept them.
Such things as excessive screeching, they may even self-mutilate
which involves pulling all their feathers out and the other thing
they do is aggressive biting, but um, for that reason we really
need to embrace flying and all the instincts that in essence make
up a bird, you know, birds in in captivity develop their instincts
just as they would if they were in the wild and it’s important
to be aware of this and embrace it so that we’re not going
to cause damage to an animal that we consider to be a companion.
I recently finished a job that involved training a communal flock
of free flight birds where there were 30 macaws, 15 Eclectus parrots
which now breed in a wild environment and they bring their babies
back to the aviary, there’s 8 redtail black cockatoos along with
5 yellowtail black cockatoos, 2 Amazon parrots amongst several
other species of parrots and, um, it’s a unique situation that’s
never been done before and it gives me great satisfaction knowing
I’ve been able to provide these birds with this lifestyle and they’re
able to develop as birds in their own right, umm, you know,
they’re let out from their aviary first thing in the morning.
They return home to roost of an evening.
But, umm, you know, working with birds in an outdoor environment,
it brings me in touch with the natural world which I find is important
in this day and age and it helps me gain perspective, um, you know,
I need to be in tune with that natural world in order to do what I do
and I need to know of predators in the area such as birds of prey
and their natural food source in that area and how they, the birds
that I train will be affected once in that area and I mean you know,
I also need to be aware of weather patterns how they might affect
a bird and I need to be able to do all this as part of the process in
assessing the suitability of the environment in which to fly these birds
and I find it very real and sometimes more tangible that what’s often
considered to be the real world because it can mean the difference
between life and death for these, in the decisions I make for these
birds and I find that very grounding but ah, you know, I needed
to have the confidence to embark on this project and take these
calculated risks with these birds that I’d become so attached to and,
I mean, these birds meant a lot to me, and the people that owned
these birds also had to have the confidence in me.
My time on the project’s now ended but I know the birds still fly free.
And I can only hope that the people who own this marvellous collection
continue to do the right thing by them.
But it’s this project that’s inspired me to embark on my latest project
with free flight and that’s the training of a blue and gold macaw named Mango.
And Mango’s here with us today so I’d just like to introduce you.
[Josh calls out] “Mango” [whistles] Come on girl. [whistles]
Come and say Hi.
Come on. Don’t be shy. Come on Mango.
[whistles again]
Come on! [audience laughs]
Come on. Come have a cookie.
[whistles again]
Come on Mango. Come on Mango. Come on.
[whistles again]
Good girl, come on.
[whistles again]
Beautiful.
[applause from the audience]
That’s the way.
Yeah. She loves her shortbread biccies.
First thing in the morning normally.
It’s been a bit of a wait today.
But, ah, you know, with Mango, unlike the flock of birds on the property
which I trained, which was a fairly isolated property.
I mean, she, I’ve trained her in suburbia and she's
one of an initial flock member and I intend getting
more when I’ve saved up enough money.
But, umm, it’s had an effect on her social habits
and her inclination to want to socialise with people
[bird screeches loudly]
Which isn’t hard to do in suburbia especially considering
we live two doors away from the local park
[bird screeches]
And when Mango flies, apparently the local vets get
20 calls a week saying there’s an escaped macaw flying
around Bronte, but anyway....
Umm, she...........
[bird screeches]
Oh it’s ok. You wanna play or eat cookie?
There you go.
And anyway, so it engages conversation, umm, with these people
and Mango’s got an innate attraction to kids and I’m not sure
if it’s the screams and high pitched calls but she’s fascinated by them,
it could be the fact that the local school kids have a blue and yellow
uniform.
[Josh and audience both laugh]
So she might think they’re like a little flock of macaws.
But whatever it is it engages this interaction and they’ll often ask
me, you know, has she escaped and what if you don’t get her back?
I get great joy in being able to tell them that, you know,
[bird screeches]
She lives an alternate lifestyle and ,umm....
[audience laughs]
you know, and they love it but the whole thing is umm,
she’s living this lifestyle and I guess she, when they say to me has
she escaped, I guess in a sense she has escaped, she’s escaped sort of a system of preconceived
ideas and in doing so with a bit of luck she may have just inspired them
into, "thinking outside of the cage".
Anyway, thank you very much.
[audience applause and cheers]