World renown animal behavior consultant, falconer, and educator Hillary Hankey dives deep with conversations and case studies on parrots, birds of prey as well as horses, dogs and all kinds of animals on topics of behavior as well as nutrition, ethology and problem solving.
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Conversations include:
Special bonus episode with Jon Rossi of the Rossifari Podcast that was released earlier this year when we sat down for a fun conversation. We talked flying birds, leadership, bird nerdin' and so much more....
Having a parrot with extremely complicated screaming, attacking, pair-bonded behavior that won't let you out of their sight without an intrusive cascade of undesirable behaviors can be a problem for the entire household. It also means layers of stress when you are torn between appeasing your parrot and your family....
This interview with Gail Buhl from the Minnesota Raptor Center and Partners for Wildlife is a thoughtful journey filled with raptor behavior tidbits, the evolution of operant conditioning in bird behavior management, raptor rehabilitation, imprinting and so much more. ...
We are going to talk about an old school term in weight management of free flying and ambassador birds, and that is ad lib weight. Another term might be trap weight or base weight. Reason why this is old school is that for some people implies your bird has this same reference weight throughout their lives, regardless of muscle tone, seasonality, and age and it can be downright dangerous....
What did we learn about birds in 2023? What was the big bird news of the year? Hillary sits down with fellow falconer, bird lover, and owl enthusiast Simone Lupson-Cook to talk about our favorite facts that we learned about birds this year....
Lead poisoning is a really big deal for wildlife, and Southern Ground Hornbills appear to be particularly sensitive to lead levels in the blood. In August, Avian Behavior International visited the Mabula Ground Hornbill Project in South Africa to identify some key behavior objectives to enhance the reintroduction strategy for the Southern ground hornbill....
We sat down with Paige Sutherland, Director of Wildlife Programs at Shavers Creek Environmental Center in Pennsylvania for a powerful discussion on wildlife training programs....
News flash, if your bird is attacking you, it probably doesn't mean that they hate you. What it does mean is that we have a lot in our relationship to unpack, from environmental conditions to expectations....
Karla Bloem, Executive Director of the International Owl Center in Houston, Minnesota, and Hillary have a fascinating conversation about owl vocalizations and Karla's journey with Great Horned Owl behavior....
Hillary answers more questions from a workshop regarding how to prepare a bird for a program, are we friends with our birds, how to know when you are doing more harm than good and much more. We get philosophical on this one! ...
Hillary answers questions from a workshop regarding do's and don'ts on building relationships with birds of prey, what to do about a kestrel that attacks the bait bag, weight managing owls, and more....
We sit down with good friend and well known aviculturist Dick Schroeder to talk about what we can learn about working with the Southern ground hornbill in a variety of different ways. We kick off our hornbill fundraising campaign for our conservation training in South Africa....
Our two favorite subjects, owls and raising ambassadors. Owls are considered flagship species, which means that while they may not necessarily be directly endangered, they are species chosen to raise support for biodiversity conservation in a given place or social context. This means that due to their widespread appeal, they have the capacity to draw in an audience to more complex issues related to their ecosystems and less charismatic components. What this also means is that they can act as flagship individuals for education programs. We often say people come for the owls and stay for the vultures....
We are going to be talking about how LIMA (least intrusive, minimally aversive) and the humane hierarchy structure stopped serving me in my animal behavior progress, what got me there, and how I help my clients instead. We take a HUGE look at how it's not uncommon in science for us to wittingly or unwittingly select the results that we want to move our hypothesis along, and this can have enormous results in health, nutrition, and yes, animal behavior....
In this session of our Behavior Makeover Series, we work with a rehabilitated non-releasable raven that is showing a lot of avoidance behavior around his trainer....