This video shows Micah flying to her cage and to her boing.  We still have to work on recall and other commands as well as give her practice on flying in a straight line with more control and landing with more control, she's already worlds away from where we started.

Her first flights, when we could convince her to let go of our hands (mind you, we started out having to literally toss her into the air because she had NO idea what we wanted from her), was wild and panicked.  I felt horrible in the beginning, to tell you the truth.  She was obviously scared.  Who would have thought flying would scare a bird?  But she was scared, and her panicked flights were totally off the wall.  She was EVERYWHERE.

Then, landing, well... she didn't so much land as hover over something until it either came to her or she slowly managed to lower herself onto it.  This is a great alternative to simply smacking into things and I'm grateful she was able to do it, but it wasn't at all what I would call "landing!"

Now, she has learned that when we put her on our thumbs, we're going to ask her to fly somewhere.  She's still really dependent on us to put her on her thumb, unless she's got an URGENT need to be somewhere else.   I've been working on making sure she knows that when she is on my index finger she STAYS there, and we're also working on ways of teaching her that it is ok to fly from, say, her boing to her cage when we tell her to.   Really, I just want her to fly where I tell her to, so if something bad should happen and she flies outside when I don't intend her to, I can recall her from wherever she's gotten herself.  

Already, she has learned what I mean when I say, "fly to your cage," "fly to your poo palace," "fly to your boing," and "fly where you want."

If I just say, "go! fly!" she will usually fly to her cage or poo palace.  She will also fly where I point. 

The most interesting part is that it appears it is not just coincidence that she flies where I ask her to, evidenced by what happens when I tell her, "fly where you want."    When we were at fly group, she desperately wanted to fly to Debbie, but I kept asking her to fly to her poo palace.  She would sometimes fly straight to her poo palace and sometimes fly over to Debbie, consider her briefly, then readjust her course and continue flying to her poo palace.   Then I said, "fly where you want!"    She flew straight to Debbie and landed on her!

Of course, once when I said, "fly to your poo palace," she inexplicably flew to the big perch with the blue and gold macaw that would definitely love to "kill a conure".   The macaw was a good bird, though.   It scared the bejeezus out of me.   I kept asking her, "why? why? why did you fly there? why?"   She's never flown to that bird or that perch before.  Sheesh.

Anyway, she's doing really well with the flying and I hope she'll continue to improve and by summertime she'll be recalling or just flying when we tell her to, where we tell her to.   It would put my mind at ease a bit, knowing that she might fly down to me from a tree or wherever she might get herself.   I guess she's flown to a tree before she came to live with us, and fire fighters had to rescue her!  Silly bird.  I bet she loved the fire fighters, though!

In other news, one of the green winged macaws flew onto Micah's perch for no good reason (it was "visit birds who probably won't like you landing next to them" day I guess), and I ran over, yelping, and someone said, "Oh, Molly won't hurt Micah!"   I said, "It's not Micah I'm worried about!"   Sure enough, though Molly was whisked away quickly, Micah was pissed and was going to "kill a green wing."   Micah, you are a little bird.   ....With a sharp beak.   The Macaws have big strong beaks, but conures little beaks are sharp, sharp, sharp!  

Good thing this doesn't happen often and we're always watching these birds closely.   We kinda have to, with the Eclectus always almost literally underfoot.

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