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....
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....
In this final part of our series with Dr. Scott Echols, board certified avian veterinarian, we cover A LOT of ground in terms of avian health and welfare. If you want the straight science about how to get your bird exercising, even in terms of rehabilitated wildlife, diet management, and osteoporosis, we talk about it all. Dr. Echols is as always, so generous with his time and information, and we are forever grateful....
Working with rehabilitated birds of prey as education ambassadors is rewarding work, but it can be fraught with challenges as well. From working with unruly (and opinionated!) audiences to dealing with heartbreaking avian losses and health issues, it can feel thankless at times.In this episode, we focus on two big issues: working with a volunteer staff and sensitive birds coming from a place of trauma...
The Problem Solving Paradigm teaches you how to manage really complex and sometimes uncontrollable variables when trying to train your bird, so you actually can realize real change....
Once again, I sit down with board certified avian veterinarian Dr. Scott Echols to discuss some pretty intense concepts in veterinary and wellness technology. He covers how new technology is discovering diseases we never even knew existed and how we are able to diagnose and treat them. More on bornavirus, feather destructive behavior, and other complex topics....
Using food as a contrived reinforcer to train our parrots is often fraught with emotions and tension. And not without good reason. But we can discuss the differences in contrived reinforcement and natural reinforcement and how both are important components in building strong relationships and decode our interactions with our birds. These concepts can uncover why our birds might stop doing what they used to do, what skills they need to build to be successful in our homes and lives and how we can become better buddies together....