# My bird doesn't know how to land



## Peetenomax (Nov 23, 2013)

I don't think Dexter knows how to land. When he's spooked he often ends up doing laps till he drops from exhaustion. That or he lands on a picture frame & I have to climb up & get him. Or worse 
As mentioned before, he's a rescue bird that had a broken wing at some point. He can fly, but doesn't. I assumed his poor landing skills was due to the bad wing. Now I'm rethinking that. I think he lacks experience & confidence. I'm beginning to suspect that Dexter was cage bound. 
He won't fly out of his cage unless chased out by Peete. Usually doesn't land well on those occasions. If he wants out he'll get our attention. He won't climb down even though he knows the rope perches set up for it. 
There are also other observations that got me thinking might be the case.

The good news is that Dex is bonding & learning things from me. I've started to teach him how to land. Having him jump to the floor from a low height, etc. 
Hopefully he'll gain confidence & not panic any more.


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## Vickitiel (Oct 10, 2012)

You're most likely right. Poor Dexter. I'm so glad you took him in, he has loads of potential.


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## CaliTiels (Oct 18, 2012)

Beaker has some trouble with his feathers, so he's not a good flyer either. Dexter is in the same boat as B


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## moonchild (Jul 29, 2012)

Poor guy! He will learn eventually. I think it's great that you're giving him the opportunity to.


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## TheTielLover (Aug 26, 2013)

Tintin was the same way. He banged into the wall almost every time he tried to fly. He could land safely some of the time, but sometimes he would miss and just bang into something. 

After months of practice, he rarely bangs into things, and is controlled enough to fly to my shoulder. 

Your bird will probably improve with flying practice.


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## Peetenomax (Nov 23, 2013)

This may sound weird or cruel but it's not.
Dexter is learning through annoyance.

1st there's Peete, the parrotlet. He's territorial & since Dex is afraid of him Peete chases him or lands on him. This causes Dexter to fly away. He doesn't panic as much now. He's got a couple 'go to' landing spots if he remembers them. 

He's also a bird that doesn't like to be touched. In the 3 months he's been with us he's made great progress. In the past week I've managed to give him head rubs.
I started with kissing him on his head dispite his protests. That turned into head rubs with lips/chin. He learned to like it & asks for them now.
The real scritchs took some work, almost there. He still mock bites fingers. I got fed up & pinned him(gently). Or course he freaked. Believe it or not it worked. By forcing my affection on him he's accepting scritches & likes it.
I was careful to avoid stressing him. I stsrted slow & got him used to it. Today I was able to give him rubs and he didnt object & leaned into it


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## catalinadee (Jan 1, 2011)

As he gets more practice he will get the hang of it. Harvey did the exact same thing and would whiz around at top speed just scraping the walls and the whole time he was doing it my heart was in my throat! He had a few crash landings but as he got more used to it he would learn how to stop a good landing spot and have crash there instead. They do get used to it


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## caterpillar (Oct 14, 2013)

Ours are terrible flyers. Their original home was a room that's twice as big as any of the rooms in my BF's current apartment, and they would do laps around it before landing on top of curtain rods. I think the fact that they're in a smaller room now is something they just can't seem to get used to, and they both crash into things, especially Elvis. (Georgia is pretty nimble.)


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