[Soap box rant alert.] I think someone mentioned lately the need to educate the public about the consequences of deliberately turning a bird loose, either because it is no longer wanted or from some misguided notion that the bird "wants to be free." One piece of the ignorance behind this is the mistaken belief that any bird can fly well, regardless of prior experience. The story of Pico shows how false this is. Years ago, my cockatoo also suffered several harrowing days and nights outside, wanting nothing more than to return to me but not knowing how. A few times, she became desperate enough to try to fly to me, only to pass maybe 30 feet over my head with no idea how to decrease altitude or even turn. (She has since learned to fly some and, while I have no
intention of letting her loose to test it, I think she would now be better able to return to me.) What had never occurred me until the Pico episode was that the belief that all captive birds fly well also makes it harder to get people to help capture escaped birds. If someone believes a bird can just fly home when it wants to, why help "rescue" it? So 2 points: 1) Even birds that are clipped can be encouraged to learn to fly downward for short distances. This just might be enough to help them descend in some tall trees. I know my Noble macaw would not even hop 1/2 inch before I started working with him, but after months of encouragement, he eventually learned to do that - and then to extend to bigger jumps. 2) We should all take all opportunities to explain to non-bird-people that birds who do not learn to fly during the normal window of learning, will be able to flap like crazy and gain altitutde, but will not have
the skills to turn and descend and may be terrified of flying because of that lack of control. Any time we have a lost bird story published, we should emphasize this aspect.