- Hi, my name is Trede,
and I have a Timneh African grey parrot named Omen.
(dramatic upbeat music)
So when we got out to Pahrump, the first night we were here,
before we even started flying the birds,
we wanted to put telemetry on our little African grey.
So Dave went through a lot of trouble,
he had to modify the mount.
It's a little piece of metal.
He had to put basically heat shrink wrap inside it
to make sure that it would actually
go on Omen's little feather.
We had to towel him two or three times
because he was super uncomfortable
and wiggling all over the place.
Yeah, we're going to do a thing.
- Hey, Omen, no matter what I want you to realize this.
We're gonna be fine.
- Yeah, can you let go?
Can you let go of my hand?
I know.
- So is it possible to have him feet down?
We're just going to be...
- Yep, then you can rest your hands on the table.
Perfect.
- Dave used a card to separate his feathers,
make sure he only got one,
crimped it down, and we put the telemetry into it,
and he just started freaking out.
So we were like, okay, let's get the telemetry out of it
before he rips the antenna off.
So we pulled the telemetry out, and within ten seconds,
Omen just ripped the entire tail feather out,
and we still have that.
- [Jamie] Oh Dave, he just got it off so quick.
- Omen.
- [Jamie] Did, you see that?
- [Trede] Good boy, you came back.
That's all I care about-
- [Jamie] Does he still have that feather in his mouth?
- [Trede] No, he dropped it.
- [Jamie] Oh, Bri, can you come bring it to me?
- It dropped. - [Trede] You're okay buddy.
- [Dave] He just yanked the whole thing out.
- [Jamie] He yanked the whole thing out.
- [Dave] Oh man.
- Wait, he didn't even, I thought he broke it.
- [Jamie] No, I mean I think he tried.
- [Trede] I mean, for all I know
it was close to molting anyway.
- [Jamie] Can you hold up your hands, like...
(fast techno music)
- So while we're out here, every other bird,
other than Dave and Jamie's, had telemetry or GPS on them.
We had a couple of instances where we actually
had to use it to find the birds.
We couldn't do that.
So with Omen, we were a little bit more reserved
on what we wanted him to do,
just because we didn't want to have to go find him
in the scrub brush.
But in the end of the day,
the training is what came through,
and we never had to go chase him down.
He always came back to us.
So the biggest struggle for us
with omen was actually having to separate him from us.
He just got to spend way too much time with us.
And the first day or two that we were out flying,
he would do a couple of quick A to B's from his perch,
but he was just not really motivated to fly
because he got to spend so much time with us.
- And get a good treat that doesn't suck.
- That was great Jen
- [Jen] Thank you.
- See if he's going to pay attention well.
Hey, can you wave?
Hey, can you wave for me?
(wind blowing) (background chatter)
I know, someone's taking a picture of you.
- Do you need Rachel to be in a different spot?
- I don't know. - Okay.
- He's kind of doing the grey,
I need to look around and think thing.
He might just watch you.
- [Rachel] Yeah. (laughs)
- That's the most obscene camera he has ever seen.
Hey, you want to come here?
Omen, come here. (Omen squawking)
- [Dave] You want to pause and just come back to him?
Or what do you think?
- [Jen] Give him a little bit of time?
- Yeah, I'm going to give him a treat
that sucks just a little less.
- [Dave] Okay.
- [Jen] Gotta up the treat.
- Yeah, bringing out the big gun.
- [Jen] Oh, he's already interested.
- Do you want a grape?
Come here.
Omen.
Yeah, see that treat doesn't suck.
(background laughter)
So one of the things that I actually think helped more
than was obvious was that Omen got
to spend time with Cressy.
He got to watch Cressy fly.
He got to fly next to Cressy.
It wasn't all the time,
but the times that he was able,
I definitely noticed him watching her,
even when he didn't take off.
Just seeing her fly.
And then a day later I'd see him do something that she did
and he'd never done it before.
So I think he actually really learns through observation.
- [Jen] Oh Cressy, she totally lifted her foot.
- [Dave] Say my name. (group laughter)
- [little Girl] Daddy, can I go play?--
- Weird because this morning in the hotel room
he wouldn't stay, like, he wouldn't stay off my shoulder.
He was just wanting to hang out,
flew to me a hundred times.
- [Jamie] You could play with it.
Go over by him and ask. - What kiddo?
(beeping)
- [Jen] did that quit?
- Yeah, Omen, you're not being recorded anymore.
- [Jamie] So I'm okay.
Dave, Kim was suggesting, and I think we went over this
in Idaho of the morning hangout time,
cutting it out because,
so that he gets it on this interaction.
- Yeah.
- [Jamie] I didn't realize all that was happening
but you're basically giving the reward before you go out.
Because he, we've talked about it with him
and his personality, he's just more rewarded
by that socialization than he is food.
- Ricochet's like that.
What do you think, bud?
- [Jamie] So I think that might be working
against you in the mornings.
- Yeah.
- Cressy!
- [Jamie] Like Cressy hasn't hung out
with us yet today until this.
- Look at this, she took three-
- [Jamie] Yeah, I think that's going to be huge.
You think about it.
- Cressy!
- Try to catch her on your hand.
- So with Omen, I think one of the big struggles
is he loves treats, but even his favorite treat
is maybe a three or four, and I'm a five.
So, all he really wanted was to come to me.
The treat's just icing on the cake.
Omen, Omen (bird squawking)
- [Jamie] Omen, come here.
- [Jen] It's okay, he's staying, he's sticking around.
- [Trede] Omen!
Woo, come here buddy, Omen!
- [Jen] (Indistinct) are yelling at him.
- [Trede] Omen, come here bud.
- [little Girl] Not coming down.
- [Jen] He's stuck.
(background chatter) (birds squawking)
- [Rachel] You want me to try and play a song?
- [Jen] He's trying to get back to you guys.
Don't panic.
He's trying to get back.
He just has to figure it out.
So contact because he just squeaked at you.
- [Rachel] Omen, come here!
Come here baby.
Come down, you gotta fly down.
- [Jen] It's okay you guys.
- [Rachel] Omen, come back. - [Trede] Omen!
- [Rachel] Omen, come back.
(birds squawking)
- [Jen] No, it doesn't really work like that.
- [Rachel] Omen, come back!
- [Jamie] Is that a raven?
- [Rachel] Yes, Omen, come back!
- [Trede] It's okay.
Come on Omen, you got it.
I got you buddy, come on.
- [Rachel] Come here Omen.
Omen, come back, Omen!
- [Jen] He's getting tired.
He's coming down guys.
(birds squawking) (loud engine passing)
(birds squawking) (rock music)
- [Jen] Good job guys.
- He's still not even taking the grape.
- No, it was a lot for him.
- Look at him.
Yeah, you're proud of yourself.
- But the fact that he was circling is good.
Was he, was he doing a high pitch call?
- [Jen] Yeah, he was doing like a squeak
it's kind of what I called it.
- Yeah, that's one of his contact calls.
- [Rachel] And then we brought the speaker,
like in case things went really bad.
We just basically play a song
so he'd try to stay in the area that he could hear it.
- [Jen] That would be more recovery based,
so the behavior you guys saw, he knows--
- [Rachel] Yeah, that was like if things went bad,
bad basically is his-
- [Jen] Yeah, yeah, and I know you guys were a little bit
more on edge because of yesterday and what happened,
and the flight pattern was looking similar.
- [Rachel] And the motorcyclists, and the ATV's,
and the cars, and the crow.
- He didn't even care when those motorcycles just ripped by.
But yeah, you know--
- [Rachel] I was going to say he does get a lot
of like construction yard equipment,
pressure washing sounds, every time we to go out, so...
- Yeah.
- [Rachel] So, it might be a little easier for him to--
- Yeah, yeah. - Hi, how you doing?
- Yeah, I would definitely consider that a success.
You know, he did what he's supposed to do.
- You came back.
- He found where his limits are today
and that's a big thing, like we were saying yesterday
with Opal was like, okay we know what the limits are.
We know what--
- Figuring out how to send.
- Yep, and--
- Yeah, it's different when there's wind, huh?
- Yeah. I feel, I feel really good about that.
And he was like, well, I can't land on you
but this is our stuff.
- We ended up most of the time in the evening
after we were done feeding him, we'd just take him,
put him in a trailer so that he could spend time
with other birds.
And we didn't see him again until we got him out
right before flying
and he was way more motivated afterwards.
(techno music)
One of the big keys to succeeding with Omen,
I think, was just the extra desensitization we went through
because at first, when we took him outside,
he's an African grey, things are happening.
He's either staring at it or running away from it.
And it was a lot of time and effort
to get him to just sit calmly
and live with what was going on.
And the end result is we can have macaws flying
an inch away from him and he just doesn't give a crap.
So when we were working with Bird Tricks
about halfway through our flight training,
we decided we wanted to take advantage
of the in home consult.
But because Omen hadn't been on a longer road trip,
we asked if we could come somewhere closer to them,
and then have them do the in-home
basically way closer to them,
that way we'd also introduce him to other birds,
other people, and not have them cart a trailer
halfway across the country.
And they were gracious enough to let us come
to Idaho and hang out with Cressy and Tusa.
And I think that really helped Omen to see other birds
and interact with them on a smaller scale
before there were 20 birds flying in the air around him.
So while we were out here flying,
it was actually really difficult not to compare ourselves
to the other birds because we saw birds that
you know, their second, third day out
we're just ripping around in the air and flying.
They had some previous students out here.
So they had some birds that had been out
before flying around.
And we just had to really remember
that Omen is a different bird.
He has a very different journey than the other birds.
He has a different life.
He has different treat motivations.
So we really just had to dial in
on what he was willing to do
and not push him past his limits.
I think the most rewarding part
of this trip for me was being vindicated
in thinking that omen would enjoy flying outside
and that he would do well at it.
(upbeat music)
I never wanted to have a bird that was just
in a cage all the time.
He's been flying a ton indoors
and we just wanted, if nothing else,
if he accidentally gets outside at some point,
I want to know that he's going to
not just get blown away immediately
by a three mile an hour wind,
and that he's going to come back if I ask him to.
So at home omen spends a lot of time not in a cage.
He has entire room in our house that is dedicated to him.
Plus upstairs he has a five foot diameter aviary
that he doesn't see as a cage really.
And one of the hard things
for us was limiting that out of cage time
well before the flight trip
so that we could get longer training sessions
and better motivation in his training sessions.
It was a hard adjustment to make
because he does love being around people so much,
but after just a day or two
of limiting his out of cage time,
even his three and four level treats popped up to a five.
So now that we've done the flight trip,
and now that he's had the outdoor freedom,
we're going to go back to letting him be out
of the cage a lot more.
His training is going to go from a very strict training
regimen where we're really building towards something,
just back kind of to a maintenance mode.
I chose Bird Tricks for free flight
because I did a lot of research.
There were definitely free flight trainers that live closer
to where I live.
There were definitely free flight trainers
that might've charged a little less money,
might've charged a little less money,
but at the end of the day, you know,
you get what you pay for.
And just seeing from the YouTube videos and the Patreon
the care intention that has gone in from creating
the seasonal feeding system,
to creating the training videos,
to creating the hormone videos, it just all comes together
so why would we want to then switch
to someone else's method of training?
Like stick with one thing all the way through
and I think that's going to do way better.
You can edit out the money part if you want.
- [Dave] No, that's--
(rock music)