- Hi, I'm Brad Rich.
I have a young Congo African Gray named Draco
and this is my pre-flight story.
(upbeat techno music begins)
(Brad whistles)
(Jamie laughs)
- Give us a joy at it.
Stay calm, I turn around and he's there.
- [Jamie] Up, you got some company.
(men whistle)
- He's like hey, good looking.
All right Brad, you might want to run.
Run to the ditch.
Let's go.
(man whistles)
- [Jamie] Whoa.
Halt, Hakeem.
- Woohoo.
- [Jamie] Yes.
- Well, I got Merlin about 35 years ago
after watching a video about Alex.
We all know about Alex the gray.
That was about as much information I had
about parrot ownership when I got Merlin.
Unfortunately he passed away last December of heart disease
and I knew I wanted to get another one.
Left a pretty big hole in my life
but I knew I had to become more educated,
step up my game so I can take better care of my next parrot,
whatever that was going to be.
So I did have a consult with Jamie.
I was thinking over the law, thinking of another gray.
We decided on another gray, a male and here we are.
So that led me to the birdtricks.com website
and I said, wow, here's everything
I need in a one-stop shop for diet, training, everything
and then I discovered free flight and knew I had to do that.
Watch the Morgan series.
I still choke up when I think about Merlin.
But saw them Morgan series and knew that free flight
was a gift that we should obviously give birds.
I mean it's, how novel,
we're going to let our pet parrots fly
and I thought that was amazing,
that I was first having that thought
after watching that series.
Commercial pilots understanding aerodynamics,
how planes work, how flight works, and a lot
of that transfers over to birds fly
and what works for them, what works, what doesn't work.
Checklists are good for training.
Took me a while to figure that out
but a checklist definitely help.
You know, we worry about is the descent angle too steep
for the bird to get down from?
I had an experience where Draco ended up
on the roof and I was 20 feet away.
It was probably a 45 degree angle
and since I was brain locked,
I didn't understand why he couldn't get down to me
but we figured it out and recovered him
and I think there's some weird association
between being a pilot and the fact
that we like birds because they can fly.
There's an association there.
My biggest struggle during the six weeks
of working with Dave, I don't know, hindsight's 2020.
I mean, clearly it was setting his motivation right
and getting his diet right.
I was feeding him too much, he was heavy.
So I think I struggled with that.
I didn't know it at the time, we were making progress,
he was making the corner flights and the point the points
and was generally doing pretty good
but could have been better
but now that I know that, we'll continue the training
and hopefully get out of here in six months.
I was definitely a motivated trainer.
It was interesting.
I was interested in learning as much as I could.
I was amazed by some of the subtle techniques
and how they change during the training process.
We had one consultation where Dave was gently
kind of beating me up on when I was clicking in,
when I wasn't clicking in.
To be honest with you, irritated the hell out of me.
I was a little bit mad at myself but it got corrected
and the recall move forward from there.
In general if you listen, if you're motivated,
it's not that difficult and I was amazed by the results.
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My property has a 2,500 square foot home
and another 600 foot office, separate building.
It has, you know a full bath.
It's a separate living area but it's only 600 square feet
and that's where I started my Draco training.
So I'd fly them from a top of a storage bin
you know, to me, maybe 20 feet away, maximum.
I don't know if this helped
but for the first four or five weeks, he was always with me.
There was never any point once I went to the store,
that if I'm home and he was within 20 feet
of me and it may have had a positive effect for the bonding.
So, oh and then I got to put up a batting cage.
Thank you, David, that was fun.
Got a kick out of the batting cage installation video
there showing putting the stakes down in nice soft grass
and 15 minutes later, it's up and running
and no, not in the desert soil.
Took me five days.
Got it up and running.
Yeah, I had to drill a hole in concrete, each stake,
including including the guide stakes, so it was fun.
Now it's there and I can continue to use it.
- [Jamie] Tell us about how Draco got loose twice.
- Oh fine, so the first time was before I hired
Bird Tricks for the free flight training
but I had done a couple of weeks
of you know, recall training from what I can tell
from the whenever you learn on the internet
and thank God I did because it's interesting.
I took him right outside my office.
He launched, I called Draco, I'm watching him fly
into the desert, but he made an immediate U-turn
flew over my head and landed on a rain gutter
and that was the time
I should've thought about descent angles
because I was too close to him
and he was just focused on me.
Wouldn't take his eyes off me,
he clearly wanting to fly to me
but I couldn't figure out why he wouldn't make the launch
because I was kind of brain locked and my brother came out.
I said, Gary, go get his training treats
and when Gary got 40, 50 feet away
and then the descent angle made sense,
he flew to my brother and we recovered him.
In fact, my first thought is why they Bird Tricks?
My second thought was, I don't know
and then my third one was, I don't know what I don't know
and I was right back on board.
So the second fly off was not a lot of fun.
He, and this was after Dave told me to use a pet carrier
when taking them outside
and I remember when he told me that as clear as day
'cause I looked at him, we didn't say anything
and I said, I handled a one pound parrot for 30 years.
This guy's not getting away from me
but I didn't understand the difference between a clipped
helpless bird and a young, fully flighted male
and he got away.
He wanted to get away, he got away.
He flew low and fast as we've seen them do all week,
got behind the house
and I lost track of where he went and I lost him.
This was seven in the morning, god, that was no fun.
I looked for him all day, didn't find him,
came back at sunset had a pretty tough night.
I put his cage
outside hoping he would notice the cage and come to it.
I was up there probably every hour calling
and listening, but nothing
and then the next day about one o'clock, my brother
comes running up and says, our neighbor has Draco
and the neighbor who happens to be the only neighbor
I know, which really got me, said he saw Draco flying
around the house and he recognized the neck work
and managed the fact that it was a parrot, you know
from the red tail and a beak and he had the presence
of mind of holding out his hand
and calling him after he landed on him on his roof
and flew to him and they recovered him.
So yeah, I use a pet carrier now.
Day one at Moab first time we take Draco out,
was a little bit brutal.
I showed up with pistachios,
and that quickly got corrected rather firmly.
(Brad laughs)
Draco just wasn't motivated.
He was a level three because you know,
we hadn't corrected my overambitious diet
and so somebody made the comment, we got to start over
and I thought that was go back to Alamogordo
and start training them six weeks, you know, all over again
and then we watched a pretty bad fly off
and it was a fly off the top four or five hours to recover.
And that'll knock anybody off balance and it did me.
So, you know, Monday night I'm thinking
do I really want to do this?
But I did.
We put Draco in Bird Trick's trailer, fed him up
a correct portion of food, tested him the next morning
and he was just right on, this great recall
and they've said, we're going to fly him today.
I was shocked.
I was completely shocked because that was a fast do over.
We flew him, he did great, he did great, it was impressive.
- Notice any birds that might be flying over the road.
Now if he wants to go to the perch, you can let go.
All Jamie was encouraging earlier was not to send him
'cause you lose reps that way.
- Yeah.
- But.
- [Jamie] Yeah, but if he wants to go, that's fine.
I was just looking for them to be a little shorter
so he wasn't using all his energy like that.
- I think Cressey likes her new friend.
- [Jamie] Oh boy.
(all laugh)
- All right, let's go this way, Brad.
Right over here.
- Move the perch?
- No, you're good, just you over here.
- Okay.
- Miesta.
(bird whistles)
Cressey.
Ah, what the?
- [Jamie] Whoa.
(both laugh)
- Good boy.
- [Jamie] Musical Grays.
- What was that?
- Who's this guy?
Well, they both made the same mistake.
Come on, bud.
(parrots whistle)
- [Jamie] He is liking that.
- Yeah.
- How do I feel now about free flying Draco
as compared to in a day one, which was not a great day?
Yeah, I'm completely all in now.
Draco won't let me get five feet away from him.
We have to trick him
so I can get far enough away so he can get a good flight in.
In fact, we even took him
to a level three with pretty steep cliff today
and I didn't think I'd ever take them up there that trip
but I'm pretty willing and anxious to get them
back out in the sky.
It was fun to watch him fly.
So concerning tracking birds, GPS's, telemetry.
I did buy the telemetry system
for Marshall in hopes that a Draco would accept it.
I did have quite a laugh when I saw Omen's video
where he just reached right around
pulled that tail feather out that the transmitter was on
and I said, that's such a great thing to do, but I had hope
for Draco, but Draco, didn't like the antenna
and he pretty much destroyed that first thing day one.
So one of the other free flight people are the owners
of that system now, the telemetry receiver.
So it worked out good for everybody, but yeah,
African Grays, they either like it or they don't,
and if they don't, it's going away
I think you always have to rely on the training
even with a tracker.
The only thing I wish I had done different
is tried to install that at home and learn
if he was going to take care of it then or not.
I would have done that differently.
I didn't shop you guys.
I just, you know, I think I Googled African Gray diet
and boom, found the guys and I was done.
I mean, it was all there.
Everything I needed was there
and you know, I looked at the subscriber count.
I mean, how popular are these guys?
You know, is it real, you know, you got to worry about that
but I didn't shop other sites and since I haven't found any.
- [Jamie] Well, I still remember our first consult together.
- Do you remember that?
- [Jamie] Uh huh.
- You had the same pain on your face, I had on mine
and which told me about the love of the birds.
I was kind of done at that point.
You know, as far as looking for help.
Did you ever hear about my dream about it?
Just as I got started, I'd seen, I think I told Dave,
but I had a dream Cressey and Draco bonded,
like inseparably and I left him with you guys.
- [Jamie] That's cool.
- [Hakeem] He'd still be free flying.
- Free flying together would be cool.
I'm not leaving him with you.
(all laugh)
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