The Avian Behavior Podcast

What to Do When a Bird of Prey Won't Step Up

What should you do when a bird of prey avoids the trainer, flushes during an approach, or will not step onto the glove? Where do you even start with a bird of prey? Bef

From our Owl Ambassador Masterclass: Health and Quarantine Considerations with Your New Owl

This is an excerpt from our Masterclass on How to Raise an Ambassador Owl. We added this lesson after fielding many questions about quarantine procedures, and wanted to e

81 The Expert Card

What does it mean to be an expert, and what happens when expertise becomes a shield from scrutiny rather than a commitment to precision? In this episode, Hillary examin

80 Mentorship and Falconry with Simone Lupson-Cook and Lauren McGough

This episode is a conversation between friends Simone Lupson-Cook, Lauren McGough, PhD, and Hillary Hankey about what mentorship means to them, growth through falconry ov

79 Transitioning from a traditional to choice based training paradigm

Explore the transition from traditional to choice-based training for ambassador raptors with Hillary Hankey. This professional discussion is a presentation from the 2026

78 Bridging the Gap: What Rehabbers Can Learn from Progressive Bird Training

In this heartfelt and insight-packed episode, Hillary Hankey sits down with winter intern Levi Soucek, a wildlife rehabilitator, educator, and outreach coordinator at the

77 Parrot Recall

This is an excerpt from our live parrot recall training, focusing on the pitfalls of over-training and the importance of recall in various scenarios. We share examples of

76 Tips for Traveling with Parrots

Traveling long distances with your parrot doesn't have to be stressful. We have moved cross country with our bird family many times. What happens if your bird hates the d

75 Avoidance Behaviors and Weight Management in Birds of Prey

Our Fall 2024 Bird of Prey Workshop focused on key topics such as managing fear and aggression in raptors using the constructional approach and non-coercive negative rein

74 Training your bird for transportation

Training your bird for transportation isn't just an important part of education programming, it's a good life skill to have. For wildlife rehabilitation organizations, na

73 Dr. Stephanie Rosenbloom and the Appeal to Nature Fallacy

Looking to the wild for answers is a common refrain among bird people when it comes to care advice, particularly nutrition. And while this concept seems well grounded in

72 Why We Value Fly Offs in Free Flight Training

"If you are looking for guarantees with free flight training in birds, you are in the wrong place." In this episode, Avian Behavior International founder Hillary Hankey a

71 Differences in Ambassador Owl Species

Owls make remarkable ambassadors to highlight conservation work, but they can also make for challenging training subjects and divisive ideas in the training community. We

70 Ruling the Roost: Managing your needy parrot and your family's happiness

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 be

69 Gail Buhl from the Minnesota Raptor Center and Partners for Wildlife

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 ope

68 Why I don't use ad lib weights or base weights: falconry and free flight birds

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 ba

67 What we learned about birds in 2023

What did we learn about birds in 2023? What was the big bird news of the year? (or, Simone and Hillary talk about owls) Hillary sits down with fellow falconer, bird lov

66 Dr. Lucy Kemp on Lead Poisoning in Ground Hornbills

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

65 Developing a student based wildlife training program

We sat down with Paige Sutherland, Director of Wildlife Programs at Shavers Creek Environmental Center in Pennsylvania for a powerful discussion on wildlife training prog

64 Why Your Bird is Attacking You

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 enviro