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Eddie's Flight Club, Yeppoon (2025)

Helping birds communicate, not "behave"

07/12/2025

The Science of Parrot Hearing: What You’re Seeing in Aura and Mojo’s Ears

Parrots have one of the most efficient hearing systems in the bird world, even though they don’t have external ears like mammals. What you see on the side of their head—those small oval openings under the feathers—are direct pathways to a highly specialised auditory system.

Parrots locate sound with impressive accuracy. Even without an outer ear structure, they detect tiny timing and volume differences between each ear. This ability comes from the precise placement of the ear openings on each side of the skull and the lack of cartilage blocking incoming sound.

Their hearing range overlaps with humans, but parrots are especially tuned to the frequencies used in flight calls and contact calls. They can detect rapid changes in pitch and rhythm, which is why they react so quickly to flock sounds and why they can learn human speech patterns.

The feathers surrounding the ear—called auricular feathers—play a major role. They’re shaped to guide sound toward the ear opening while also protecting it from wind during flight. These feathers act almost like a built-in acoustic funnel.

Inside the ear, parrots have a highly sensitive cochlea that converts sound vibrations into neural signals. Their auditory nerves process these signals rapidly, giving them excellent sound discrimination. This speed helps them navigate dense forests, avoid predators, and maintain communication while flying at high speeds.

Parrots also excel at something called auditory stream segregation, which means they can separate multiple overlapping sounds. In the wild, this lets them identify individual flock members, even in a noisy environment.

Because their system is designed for clarity, structure, and subtlety, sudden loud or chaotic sound can overwhelm them easily. Their hearing evolved for meaningful communication, not constant noise.

So when the video shows Aura’s and Mojo’s ear openings, you’re seeing the entrance to one of the most finely tuned sensory systems in the avian world.

Sources

• Dooling & Saunders – Hearing in Parrots (Journal of Comparative & Physiological Psychology)
Jarvis – Neurobiology of Vocal Learning (NY Academy of Sciences)
• Merck Veterinary Manual – Avian Ear Anatomy

06/12/2025

Wing Clipping: A Longstanding Debate Here’s Why I Don’t Support It

Wing clipping has been argued about in the bird world forever. People have strong opinions on both sides, and I’m not here to shame anyone. We all make decisions based on what we know at the time. But from my own experience working with birds every daynand from everything the science tells us. I strongly don’t support wing clipping. Parrots are built to fly, physically and mentally, and removing that ability changes far more than people realise.

Flight shapes their brain.
Flying activates huge areas of a parrot’s brain, including the parts responsible for balance, coordination, navigation, memory, and problem-solving. When a bird can’t fly, those regions don’t develop the same way. Clipping affects cognition, not just movement.

Their bodies are engineered for flight.
Everything from their pectoral muscles and keel bone to their hollow bones and air-sac respiratory system is designed for flight. Remove flight, and you see muscle loss, weaker lungs, poor balance, excess weight, and more climbing injuries. They climb because they have to, not because they’re built for it.

Behaviour changes when flight is removed.
Clipped birds often show more anxiety, frustration, screaming, biting, and phobic behaviour. A flighted bird can choose to move away from something stressful. A clipped bird can’t and that loss of control shows up in their behaviour.

Clipping doesn’t guarantee safety.
Partially flighted birds can still build speed but have no lift, which leads to harder crashes, falls, fractured keels and legs, and poor landing accuracy. Many clipped birds actually get hurt more often because they still attempt to fly.

Flight is enrichment you cannot replace.
Nothing matches the mental and physical benefits of true flight. It supports healthy hormones, cardiovascular fitness, confidence, exploration, and natural flock behaviour. No toy or foraging tray can replicate the complexity of flying.

My view is simple: I don’t judge anyone for past choices. We’re all learning. But I can’t ignore what decades of science and firsthand experience show flight isn’t optional enrichment; it’s a biological need.

Honouring their wings is one of the most meaningful ways we can honour their wellbeing.

04/12/2025

🩵 Corella Chaos: Echo Edition 🩵

Little Corellas are one of the most behaviourally and anatomically unique cockatoos, and their quirks are straight-up fascinating when you look at the science behind them:

🧠 Overbuilt Bird Brain
Corellas have an enlarged frontal cerebrum compared to other cockatoos. This gives them advanced problem-solving abilities, complex play behaviour and that hyper-curious, “must investigate everything” personality the species is known for.

⚡ The Corella “Head Shock” — Cranium Engineering
Their skull is reinforced with dense cranial bone designed to absorb impact during wild behaviours like chiselling, digging and hitting compacted soil. That built-in shock-absorption system creates their signature rapid head-jolt when they’re excited or overstimulated. It’s a neurological reflex tied to impact-ready anatomy.

🕳️ Born Excavators
Corellas evolved as ground and root foragers. Their beaks are shaped for leverage, their tongues generate strong pressure, and their neck muscles are developed for “pull-up” style digging. Dirt, mats, clothes, carpets — the instinct triggers anywhere.

🤼 High-Play Social Development
Young Corellas engage in intense play-fighting to learn bite pressure control, coordination and dominance cues. It’s one of the strongest juvenile social behaviours in any cockatoo species.

💨 Aerodynamic Show-Offs
Their air sacs and pectoral muscles are built for abrupt directional changes and fast acceleration. Corellas can pivot mid-air with ridiculous precision — a trait designed for flock manoeuvring and predator evasion.

🎤 Their Famous Corella Scream
Their syrinx (voice box) is tuned for high-volume, long-range calls so flocks can communicate across wide open country. That piercing shriek? It’s not drama — it’s engineering.

🩶 Powder-Soft Feathers
Corellas produce a heavy amount of powder down, giving them that velvety texture and coating absolutely everything around them in a soft, ghostly dust.

Corellas aren’t just cute little white cockatoos — they’re biomechanical, behavioural chaos engines built by evolution to dig, scream, play-fight and problem-solve their way through life.

Perfect little weirdos. Echo included.

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