Little Successes

A short, quick post coming your way...

I've been working on some basic bird training at the Oakland Zoo for about a year and a half now. I only go one day a week, and I end up having to skip a fair number of weeks because of coaching commitments. For anyone who has dappled in animal training, you'll understand why progress has been slow and inconsistent. If I had been doing little training sessions with these birds 3 or 4 times a week, I would have seen results much quicker (a month or two), but I trained when I could and considered it a good day if any of the birds had similar behaviors as the week before.

What is my goal? Have each bird (there are currently 13 birds in the aviary) perch on a different "station". I could put a scale under the station to collect a weight. I could train the bird to stay on the station while a keeper does a visual assessment of the bird's physical health. I could train the bird to touch a target with it's wing. I could hypothetically teach the birds to do anything. The "station" behavior is just scratching the surface.

Before starting the training, most of these birds chose to fly to the highest, furthest perch in the aviary when people (keepers, volunteers, vets) entered. A year and a half after starting, about 8 of the 13 birds will come to the ground or a nearby perch after I've stood in the aviary for a couple minutes. I reinforce all of them with yummy little mealworms, and I encourage them towards various "stations" by using the mealworms as lures. This training process is much more complicated than I'm willing to go in to in this blog, but trust me when I say there are lots of little baby steps along the way.

In the last two weeks, one bird in particular has shown a lot of really great progress. The female Hadada Ibis will readily come to the ground, approach and stand on her designated "station" - a wicker basket top. I reward her for staying on top of the "station" and then I occasionally toss one of her rewards just far enough away so that she has to walk off the wicker basket top to get it and then make the decision to return to the "station" to get another reward. And she makes that decision...and she makes it quickly and, seemingly, without hesitation. Here's a picture of her standing on her "station" this last Sunday:

Hooray for her!!!

Now I'll be "proofing" this behavior of standing and staying on the station by slightly moving the station to different parts of the exhibit. Her buddy, the male Hadada Ibis, is also consistently approaching his "station", but as of Sunday, he hasn't progressed further than just pecking it with his beak.

While they aren't progressing in leaps and bounds, the process of doing training sessions is a useful and simple form of enrichment for these birds...and I am a huge advocate for enrichment.

Read more about Hadada Ibis here - not really a whole lot of info, but you'll get the general idea.

Or better yet...just come by the Oakland Zoo on one of these nice summer days and check out ALL their animals!