still reading about birds to know as much as I can!
I'm going to continue to randomly do informational rants like this, if you enjoy it that's awesome but this is mainly a way for me to solidify the information in my brain. If anyone has further details on anything I say, or something I've said isn't quite right I would appreciate the input I want to learn everything there is to know!
Apparently common mammals devote only one twentieth of their body to the respiratory system meanwhile avians devote around one fifth. Just, wow. That's a heck of a lot of oxygen travelling around their bodies in order to maintain flight, could you imagine what it must feel like when they get fluid in their lungs? So much of their body is lung, I imagine losing the ability to use part of it must be incredibly hard to maintain proper stance, let alone flight.
They also shrink certain organs until necessary in order to make themselves able to fly better. An example being that they shrink their reproductive organs and glands until matin season! Lots of things have been removed to sustain flight: urinary bladders are no longer present, less vertebrae, some bones are fused.
The type of muscle tissue also apparently related to how long a bird can last before getting tired. "dark meat", tissue with many oxygen-rich fibres are able to sustain flight much longer than "white meat" tissues with fewer fibres.
I don't know whether this belongs on my bird blog or here.. so it's going here..
just some free flight feels..
I can not even begin to explain just how amazing it is to be free flying Zeeby and now having Mia slowly grasping the concept. Not only is the great for their health but there's be so many other small changes in them as well as myself through this let alone the experience itself.
Starting off with Zeeby, at the start of this she could barely fly one lap and would return panting, beak open, and would have to take a 3 minutes break between laps. She was so nervous with her body language, uncertain, and was seeming so confused with a lack of confidence in her ability to fly and now look at her. In the last video she flew three laps off of one take off and returned with slight heavy breathing, instead of me having to thrust my hand for take off all I have to do now is gently put my hand in front of my body and she just takes off all by herself. She is so much more confident in her ability to fly, she enjoys flight so much more and that is reflecting on a whole bunch of behaviours outside of flight.
Zeeby has become so much more adventurous, foraging a whole lot more, exploring different levels of the playgym and playing with a bunch of new toys. Rather than stretching as far as she can she now climbs and jumps without a second thought and will randomly fly circles around the bird room with ease.
She has also become very loving whether or not flying has just made her happier or she somehow understands that I relate to the joy of flight, who knows? But it is the best feeling in the world to see her this happy. She now randomly flies down to me when I'm on the computer, she'll waddle around trying to kiss my fingers and crawl in to my jacket just for the heck of it. She's also been making this noise she used to make back at the shop when I was hand feeding her, it's like this grumbly, sweet, almost a bird version of a purr is the best way I can describe it. She will fly on to my shoulder after a flight session, bolt in to my hair and make that purr-like noise before she starts preening my hair.
Through this, with what little Mia has done so far, I have seem some changes in her too. Mia is less afraid of things, she no longer runs away when I put a new toy on the playgym and doesn't freak out when I enter a new room, as well as flying down to the floor when I'm laying down there. She is more wiling to try out new toys and foods, she has even started eating vegetables she said she hated before. Mia has also (so far) stopped flying off of me to reach Roxy when we move from one floor to the other, she doesn't scream at her very much either. She's also become much more responsive to training, she is picking up things a lot faster and is reacting to commands in the flight room which she didn't used to do.
Mia has also become a lot more loving after this (although her head is ridiculously covered in pinnies right now so that might be the cause), she now flies down to me, shoves her head on to my jacket drawstring and rubs her head on it until I give her scritches. She's become a scritch addict, I was watching TV on my computer while I scritched her and she just flopped there for a good 10 minutes. It's hit the point where, when she's relaxed enough, I can preen anywhere on her body- just the other day I was preening some coverts for her.
There is honestly no way to represent the perfection that is watching them fly and develop this way. The videos I take do not do this justice at all, watching them after the fact downsizes just how amazing it is in person. It's honestly- There are no words.
This in itself has also changed me, I feel so overwhelmed with happiness when Im standing down there- Zeeby zipping above my head, wings skimming right above my hair and the power of those wings pushing air upon me- it feels surreal. It is an utterly magical experience that I wish I could capture for all of you to see.
I have also become a lot more confident in my own abilities, one of the most difficult things to train and look at that; no references, no step by step guide, no mentor, just my birds and myself.. we did it. I may not be the smartest person on the earth, I may not be the best at academics, I may not be the best at being a good person, I have my flaws and I'm not perfect but if there's anything I'm good at.. It's this.
