One of the core goals of ambassador training is deceptively simple: we want our owls to experience abnormal situations as normal parts of life. Over the years, we’ve learned that resilience doesn’t come from avoiding challenges—or from overwhelming birds with them. It comes from thoughtful exposure, timing, and...
Free flight is often talked about as a milestone. The epitome of trust and welfare when it comes to coexisting with birds. While this is not a framework we embrace, we do believe strongly in the benefits of free flight for the birds and people...
On Love Your Wetlands Day, our team had the opportunity to connect with the community around one of Southern California’s most important—and most overlooked—ecosystems: wetlands. Our birds Aldo the Great Horned Owl and Goldie the American kestrel went to the Love Your Wetlands event in...
When most people meet one of our conservation ambassador birds, they see an unforgettable educational experience. What many don’t realize is that those same birds have helped build the research foundation of Avian Behavior Conservancy over the last decade. Your support of our education programs has...
Most people think bird conservation happens in spring and summer, when birds are nesting, raising chicks, and filling our mornings with song. But some of the most critical conservation work happens in winter, when the landscape seems quiet and still. January might feel like the off-season,...
If flying birds has piqued your interest, you might have a question or two about the various types of telemetry devices on the market and how they integrate with your training program. A quality flighted relationship with your bird relies on your understanding of how...
If you’ve ever watched noticed kestrels in the grasslands here in San Diego or other parts of the US, you might have wondered if they are more plentiful during certain times of the year. This year, our team is joining a global network of bird researchers...
For many apprentice falconers and early-career professionals, creance work can feel deceptively simple. The bird flies out. The bird comes back. The line stays untangled. Progress is measured in distance and reliability. We use the creance to give us an opportunity to layer recall with positive...
For more than a decade, our work began as a mission-driven LLC, guided first and foremost by the welfare of the birds in our care. That priority shaped how we trained, educated, and made decisions—always with the birds’ best interests at the center. In 2025, we took...
When we talk about giving animals "control" in training, we stumble into vague territory. Control is a hypothetical construct. It's abstract, unmeasurable, and it shifts the conversation away from behavior and back into feelings and intention. Let's ground ourselves in what we can observe and influence:...