**Attention** The
information on these free flight pages are purely our experiences we've
had with free flight and in no way instructional. Please do not
attempt to free fly your bird unless you are with a trained
professional. Doing so can result in the loss of your bird!
Congo African Grey Free Flight-
Cressi's Free Flight Training Part 3
Part Eight - Outdoor Free Flight Day 3 - March 1, 2008
It
was much hotter, but not as windy as the day before.
Cressi started out the day by flying from her cage, to me.
I then played catch with her while going to and from Jamieleigh and me.
After just a few flights into the day, she decided to take
some exploratory flights to check the area out.
She recalled just perfectly though, and my nerves were much
more prepared for it today. Yesterday's wind was a bit more exciting that
I'd hoped for.
The whole experience has been great, to say the least. I
still have not set her in a tree and cued her fly back to me, but I
suppose that will happen soon.
I'm concerned
that she will start to land in trees instead of coming back
to me. Her recall is great, but it's always a bit
scary to throw $1,500 in the air and hope it comes back.
I continue to work on her recall daily, both indoors and
out, to best prepare her for her next venture; the tree!
The following video below shows off
some of her exploratory flights. Notice how she's
starting to dart around now quite a bit.
She'll go to
land on me, then dart the other way and play around for a
short while. Also, try to pay attention to her
landings, they are becoming much more controlled and
skillful.
Part Nine - Outdoor Freeflight Day
4 - March 2, 2008
This was a much better day than the day
before. Cressi had much more enthusiasm, and energy. I suppose it had
a lot to do with the temperature outside, as it was much cooler than
yesterday. I decided to fly her a couple hours earlier than I had
previously so that it wouldn't be as hot. It seemed like she got over
heated yesterday and decided to call it quits early.
Also, we had other people with us, which may have had
something to do with her desire to not fly much. However, today
was great!
It was difficult to find a safe place to fly her. We
tried switching it up a little bit today, however it seemed
like everywhere we went there were dangers. The first
dangers we ran into were actually model airplanes and
helicopters.
The field was a beautiful field to fly
in, which is probably why we weren't the only ones there.
I'm curious to find out if those guys fly every weekend at
that location.
It appeared that it was a ritual for them, as they seemed
quite comfortable parking on the grass, and displaying their model aircrafts all
across the ground. There are no hard feelings though, it looked like they
were having a blast!
The
second place we visited was a new park that our GPS pointed
us towards. The park looked great, however I think it
was a breeding ground for hawks. Tons and tons of them
filled the sky, leaving us no option other than leaving and
searching for a new place to fly.
Today's outdoor experience was unique in the fact that
Cressi immediately started exploring. She's really
enjoying her time outside more and more. Like most
feelings, this one is equally as hard to really explain, but
I can tell you that it's a wonderful feeling and that she's
really having a great time!
One
of the skills that we continued to work on today was a long
distance recall. I'd set Cressi on this very high-end
looking tire that happened to be sticking out of the ground,
and I'd run far away and recall her with a verbal call and
whistle. She got up to controlled distances of about
100 yards.
I'm pretty impressed with how quickly she
is developing her skills and adapting to changing
situations. This is all the stuff that we never get to
see happening in the wild, which is probably why it's so exciting to
experience live.
Hopefully this video will help share the excitement
of today's outdoor freeflight
experience.
