(upbeat music)
- Dave Womach here again from Bird Tricks,
and if you're new here, consider subscribing
so you don't miss a single update on Sunny's
incredible transformation,
and don't forget to hit that thumbs up
if you happen to enjoy any moment of this video.
Now in the last episode, we talked about how it was my dream
to get Sunny to be able to go out and free fly.
However, we didn't know if it was truly his dream.
So we decided to go on his very first road trip,
packed him up and headed on out
to do a free flight trip with Sunny in tow.
Good morning, it is Sunny's first road trip,
so we actually put him into this trailer
not really knowing what to expect.
We'd heard rumor that he doesn't like
the other parrots, other macaws,
and maybe that might make him aggressive,
but the cool thing about this is he actually seems
pretty chill by the other birds.
This is admittedly his very first morning,
we put him in there last night,
and at first he wasn't eating,
but he seemed to have a little bit of observational learning
and was watching Jinx eat,
and so one of the stops he actually ended up eating,
so let's say hi.
Look at Jinx!
And Sunny, how you doing, buddy?
(screeching)
- [Dave] Just some little flecks.
(screeching)
- Now in all of our training sessions,
we've always talked about
how even if your bird is a clipped bird,
you should never, ever take it outside,
because the fact is it can probably fly.
Which is one of the main reasons we decided to head on out
to the Salt Flats just outside of Salt Lake City, Utah.
Now there's no way even if he caught a gust of wind
that he could possibly make it very far,
but, quite honestly, he kinda flies like a rock, so.
But there's no way he could even make it 100 yards
with a huge gust of wind, so we set ourselves up
for the best amount of success possible,
in the safest area that we could.
Then, we just let him watch to see what his response was
while other birds were flying around.
The really cool thing was that every time
he would watch Jinx take flight, or Toosa,
or even the conures, he would show signs of wanting to fly,
like starting to flap his wings.
Do you want over, buddy?
You have come so far.
Now, if I held him on my hand,
he would actually put his wings out
and he would try to flap.
All of this showed me that he is wanting to mimic
what the other birds are doing.
So this also reaffirmed to me
that this is his choice,
and that he actually wants to fly, and that it's not just me
pushing my dream of flight onto him.
(bird screeching)
(upbeat music)
- I decided to do my training outdoors with Sunny
for several reasons.
First, his feather condition is horrible,
so being exposed to more sunlight and more wind,
he's hopefully going to start to feel what it's like
to have that sensation of wind and sunshine.
Which could start to make his feather condition
a little bit better over all.
The second reason was that I wanted him to be exposed
to different elements, potential fears,
but in a safe, controlled environment,
where we could help him understand what's a real threat
and what's a real concern,
versus these concerns that aren't actually relevant.
While at the Salt Flats,
I decided to do some target training,
just to kind of refocus his mind.
If you've followed some of our training sessions,
I referred to it as mental misdirection.
He understood how to target,
so rather than having any anxiety with being outside,
I wanted to redirect his attention into something that
he was confident with.
We did a quick target training session
and were able to establish that he was receptive
to training outside.
So this meant that we could continue on with his journey.
The next stop we took the birds to Little Sahara Sand Dunes.
Now this is a situation that once we got there,
I realized it wasn't actually going to be safe for Sunny.
The winds were pretty high, and if something happened,
there was a much higher risk of being able to recover him,
or have to go recover him, I should say,
in that environment.
So we just flew the rest of the flock and decided that
after that, we're headed off to Moab.
(upbeat music)
- To help us get his feather condition right,
one of the things that we did at each location is
we give all the birds a bath,
and we were happy to see that Sunny
actually was pretty receptive to it.
Unfortunately, our cameras died,
so we didn't get any good footage of that this trip,
but you saw from our last episode that
he seems to respond pretty well to the baths
if he's in the sunshine.
Those of you that follow us over on Patreon
will see kind of the behind the scenes
of all the extra work that Jamie's been doing
to get Sunny used to the bath.
And all this has been really helping
towards making his feather condition look
quite a bit better.
One of the big challenges that I have with Sunny
is that he's not very willing to step up consistently.
And part of it feels almost like he's clumsy,
or his muscles are atrophied, or his tendons are too tight,
I can't really put my finger on the exact reason,
but it's definitely an issue where he struggles to step up.
So I'd work on this all the time,
whether it was on the office while he was on the tree,
I'd stop between editing video,
and I'd just go over him and ask him to step up.
And I found through a lot of struggles that
he was only receptive if he was at one part of the tree,
and he was facing the correct direction
to step up with his left foot.
Once I realized that, I was able to expand beyond
just the basic training on that tree,
and take the training outside.
So when we got to our favorite level 2 location in Moab,
where we felt safe again having him outside,
it was a location that we were familiar with
that we felt confident with having him there,
were able to work on the step up training with him
on a T-stand in between flying the other birds.
(upbeat music)
- Just like how I took target training outdoors
to give him a little mental misdirection,
to direct his mind into something that he's used to doing,
I did the same thing with the step up.
So even though he wasn't great at it yet,
it did take his mind off of
being concerned for anything else,
and actually, something really amazing happened.
He's such a gentle bird, and I think he's just got this soul
that's begging to be loved.
We had an alarm call from some of the other birds
in the flock, and I looked up, and sure enough,
a raven was coming straight at us.
And at first glance I couldn't tell if it was
a raven or a hawk,
so I instinctively put my hand straight into his chest
like I would with any of our other birds,
and I just felt this little, gentle push in my hand,
where he just grabbed my hand just gently pushed it away.
And it was really neat to know that
in that moment he had no desire to harm me,
even though I had totally screwed up.
The final thing we worked on on this particular trip is,
well, I talked in the last video
about how we all tend to use our own love language
to show our birds that we care.
And this isn't something that birds are
naturally receptive to most of the time,
but it is something that's important enough to me
that I wanted to condition Sunny
that every time I kissed him on the head, he'd get a treat.
In a nutshell, it's basically a form of NLP.
So in other words, he's getting a little dopamine hit
every single time he gets that treat.
So what I started to do is I would pair
my kissing of his head at the exact same time
that he would get the treat.
And fast forward to today,
I'm able to pick him up and kiss him on the head
without having to give him a treat.
As little progress as that seems,
it was huge steps forward for Sunny.
Unfortunately, that was the end of that trip.
So we drove home, but just a few days later,
I was headed back to Moab for some lessons in wingsuiting.
Now I know that some of you on YouTube were saying,
"Oh, what are you doing wingsuiting, that's so dangerous,
stop doing that, you know the death rate?"
And I just wanna clarify that
the stuff you're probably thinking about
is called proximity wingsuit flying,
it's usually paired with base jumping.
So basically, those guys are flying inches off the ground
with just near misses,
but just so you have a sense of the level of safety
that I'm approaching it from,
I'm doing it as a skydive, and opening well above
where even most skydivers open.
Ultimately giving me plenty of time and distance
from the ground.
I want to be around a long time,
and I wouldn't be doing anything unnecessarily
that put me at extra risk.
But maybe I'll share more on that in another video.
So while I'm in Moab getting this training,
I would make little training sessions
multiple times throughout the day.
I set up an extra iPad as a nanny camera,
and he'd be out in the trailer,
he had a really cool setup there actually
where he was loose on the tree in the trailer
where it was parked with AC running.
And I could keep an eye on him
through that little spy camera.
Well, I looked on that camera and I saw that
he seemed like he looked ready for a training session,
so I went out there and had a huge breakthrough moment,
where he actually came over to me for the first time
and showed me that he wanted to step up.
(upbeat music)
- So I am down here in Moab with Sunny,
and I'm kinda kicking myself,
because he's been in here today and I,
when I came in the trailer to check on him,
he immediately got super excited and came over
and I didn't have a camera rolling,
but now that I have the camera rolling,
he's a little bit concerned.
So I'm gonna see if I can set it down,
see if I can get this.
Hey!
(upbeat music)
- There ya go, get there, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Oh come on.
Good job!
Good job.
Oh, good job.
I didn't even have to show you the treats that time.
Yeah?
Good job!
Good job, good job, good job.
And that was the first time that I had really seen
that progress where he actively wanted
to be a part of my life.
Even though I spent a week in Moab on that particular trip,
that was the only thing that I really had success with.
But that was another huge breakthrough moment.
As you can see, he's really going to be a long-term project
where's there's lots of tiny little wins.
It's not always really fast.
He's going to be someone that I have to work with
for quite some time.
I'm interested in hearing your stories,
if you've also had birds that seem to learn at a lower pace,
and you're just struggling to get these progressions,
and it seems super slow,
leave that feedback in the comments below,
I'm curious to hear what your unique problems were.
As we're often reminded, embrace your pace.
Remember, it's not about how fast you want it to happen,
it's really up to the bird,
and how fast he's willing to do it.
So stick around to see more Sunny updates
right here on Unwanted.
(upbeat music)
- I'm so excited, you're gonna fly, huh CJ.
Okay, but first I wanna offer the water.