Avian Behavior International

04/18/2025

It’s International Dark Skies week! Come visit us Saturday at 6pm at the Rancho Peñasquitos Ranch House. https://darkskysandiego.org
I always say: our role as conservation educators doesn’t stop at what happens in the programs. It’s about helping people understand how the choices we make ripple outward—sometimes literally into the night sky.

Animals of all kinds influence the movements of other life forms, whether they are pushing or pulling them in certain direction. As humans, we have a disproportionate impact on all life around us, whether intentional or not. Even leaving a light on attracts insects which can pull birds towards us, which increases their risk.

Even small changes make a difference when you’ve got hundreds of birds flying overhead.

- Turn off exterior lights overnight during peak migration (April through May and again in September through November).
- Switch to motion sensors instead of leaving lights on all night.
- Use downward-facing fixtures that don’t spill light into the sky.
- Close curtains and blinds at night if you’re leaving lights on inside.

04/07/2025

A Hawk Walk experience is a falconry class that shows the difference in how two bird of prey species, hawk and the falcon, forage for their prey and work with the falconer. There are a lot of visual anatomical differences that help us understand these contrasts, from tail and wing shape to their toe conformation. Interesting, even the rate at which a hawk and falcon can see is different. This is called flicker fusion rate, and it allows the falcon to make those split second decisions in mid-air as they pursue aerial prey.

In our classes, we usually have a basic structure of how the birds will fly and come to the glove, but changes in the weather or general environment will inform our day. The winds picking up make for some really interesting flights, as Oakley the Harris's hawk showed earlier last week. Halley the Saker falcon can also do some pretty sweet moves as she chases the lure, which keeps the falconer on their toes!

04/04/2025

Episode 78 on the Avian Behavior Podcast is out! From our recent intern and Avian Behavior Lab member Levi Soucek:

“It’s not just about getting the bird in the crate. It’s… offering degrees of freedom. Positive reinforcement is one thing… but witnessing birds that are offered choices and degrees of freedom... it’s just a marvel.”

You can check out the episode here https://avian-behavior.org/78-wildlife-rehab/ or wherever you get podcasts

04/02/2025

A fun split screen that we did with our female Andean condor Suyana during a fitness building session as we prepare for free flight. She’s a big girl and building her muscle and crate confidence is an important component for our next steps. She’s has plenty of history in her previous life with these concepts, but her new life will ask of her to make more complex decisions in a variable space.

03/28/2025

Oakley the Harris’s Hawk connects those of us on the ground to the air currents as she rises and falls with a tilt of her wings. In our falconry classes, we talk about how connected we become to the weather of the week and even the daily rhythms, how birds of prey change their behavior from season to season and with the activities of humans around them. On a breezy day, it’s easy for Oakley to lift into a soar with hardly a flap, circling and waiting for a cue that she can return to earth. It’s a truly special experience to be allowed into, and even as trainers, we do not take these relationships for granted.

03/26/2025

Never underestimate the length of an owl’s legs 😆 Ripley the spectacled owl showing off how she can look very squat and very loooooong. She is one of our favorite birds to show how different owls are in terms of aerodynamics.

On a completely windless day, Ripley’s soft light feathers will still shutter with the slightest puff of air. Owls aren’t meant to be streamlined. They are soft around every edge, making little eddies of air currents when they fly. We like to say that Ripley flies like a toasted marshmallow 🥰 owl feathers have these features to allow them to be silent ambush predators. This makes them deadly on the wing but extremely slow to take off even with a big meal in full view. Gotta check out all the angles!

03/21/2025

Larue the crested caracara makes a cameo on some of our Hawk Walks for our falconry classes. This cool bird is not afraid to chew some scenery and be the center of the spotlight. He’s learned that flying with ravens is no longer scary but just another fun game

03/12/2025

“[In blood tests], we found patterns of the proteins that were very similar to those in people that have Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s disease. It’s almost equivalent to a small child having Alzheimer’s. These birds are really suffering the impacts from plastic, especially on their neuronal brain health,” [Alix de Jersey, a PhD student from the University of Tasmania’s School of Medicine] said

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/mar/12/plastic-pollution-leaves-seabirds-chicks-with-brain-damage-similar-to-alzheimers-study-aoe?CMP=oth_b-aplnews_d-1

03/11/2025

It was such a treat for us to see our community at the San Diego Bird Alliance Bird Festival last weekend. We enjoyed meeting many new and old friends and getting to share a bit of flighted fun on Sunday. Huge shoutout to our volunteers in the presentation, our volunteer biologists and our guest who attempted to eat faster than a falcon. It was such a great weekend!

02/26/2025

Comfy girl! Suyana the Andean condor sits and digests after a training session a bath. You can see her big vulture crop hanging over the stump in this pic. Vultures can eat so much at a sitting they can have a hard time flying. Suyana goes straight to her water tub after eating and soaks her legs. Every. Time.

02/19/2025

This lovely training session with our pink cockatoos, Roxy and Daisy Mae, highlights two things we are talking about in training this week, recall with parrots and how to fade a lure and use a cue. The gorgeous sister cockatoos are practicing flight sessions in our big aviary as we assess how fluent their skills are in a different environment than their usual training area. You can listen to our latest podcast on parrot recall here or wherever you get podcasts by looking for Episode 77 of the Avian Behavior Podcast
https://avian-behavior.org/77-parrot-recall/

02/14/2025

There are lots of different ways birds court mates, from lekking, in which males hold court to compete for females, to elaborate aerial displays. Guinness the Eurasian eagle owl is showing one way raptors court. They can duet, they can offer food gifts, and of course, “build” nests. Owls don’t really build nests and eagle owls just scrape some dirt aside. But if you are a female Eurasian eagle owl, or a member of Guinness’s inner circle, it’s hard not to feel flattered. Tis the season! Happy Valentines Day!

02/08/2025

Help us welcome our newest resident, female Andean condor Suyana. This beautiful bird is settling in to her new space and enjoying meeting guests. She will be the star of our upcoming Conservation Experience with other Avian Behavior residents. With a ten foot wingspan, she represents the largest flying birds in the world and will help us with key global conservation initiatives.

02/05/2025

Southern ground hornbills have powerful beaks, and they know how to use them. Some times they pound objects out of territorial behavior, sometimes out of plain curiosity. These helper males were bringing food to an active nest, and then got a little squirrelly with the research camera put up by APNR Ground Hornbill Project. If you have ever met our Kipling, you know he likes to grab attention in a similar way!

While the southern ground hornbill is nationally endangered, there will be no coming back for the research camera it destroyed!

02/01/2025

Taking care of the wild ones on a beautiful day! Planting native plants like lemonade berry bush, and our interns are putting final touches on kestrel boxes. This year hits an inflection point for Avian Behavior as we shift gears towards our big goals. In 2024 we started laying the groundwork for what’s to come and we look forward to sharing it with you and including our community in making the world a better place for birds and the people who love them.

01/30/2025

We think they meant to call them Queen vultures, as in Rio is the queen bee.

The orange knobby flesh on Rio the king vulture’s beak is called a caruncle and it definitely adds to her presence. Caruncles can have attractive qualities for some birds and even thermoregulating properties in some species.

Unlike other vultures in North and South America, king vultures can’t smell and will follow much smaller yellow headed vultures to carrion and open it up for everyone to feast.

01/28/2025

It's been a rewarding month of conferences and speaking engagements. We just returned from Parrot-Festival talking about how to assess compatibility for adoptive parrots. This helps in growing much needed skills. It was a fabulous weekend of seeing old friends, meeting awesome bird nerds, and some serious shopping and fundraising for the BIRDS! Way to go The Bird Endowment for such a sensational year and looking ahead to great news!
Check out the full paper and more resources including an upcoming class here https://avianbehaviorlab.kit.com/119aa5de6a