If Stu speaks for the trees, he needs to enunciate.

So when I arrived at camp a couple weeks ago, I found that while we couldn’t really say the birds were well trained, they had certainly trained us. Here are some things the birds had trained us to do (and you may notice a theme):

STU: If I hang upside down from my cage like a demented bat, you will leave!

K2: If I fly around like I’m trying to escape a very localized tornado, you will leave! And if that doesn’t work out, I’ll just fly at your head and then you will leave!

MARIAH: If I hiss, clack my beak, and run away from you, you will leave!

Why have previous caretakers left the cages during these behaviors (other than, of course, personal safety)? I’m guessing it’s because they had trouble recognizing the difference between “I’m being an asshole” in birdspeak and “I’m genuinely stressed out.” Mariah was very good at this, partly because she wasn’t consistent: if she was really hungry, she’d tone it down a bit, and whoever was handling her would think “wow, she’s having a great day” and in comparison assume she must be completely freaked out on the days she behaved like a feral cat.

The trouble with these behaviors is that is very difficult to get rid of them, particularly if they’ve been effective over the long term. Once can attempt to put them on cue, and hope that silence will reign in the absence of the cue, or one can just stop rewarding the behavior. This latter approach is called extinction, and it requires consistency. Even with K2 divebombing my head, I can’t leave. I can, however, spray him in the face with water, which is both cathartic and hilarious: for a bird, he’s got a very expressive confused face.

Extinction also requires the bird to be clever enough to put that behavior away for a while for others. With Mariah, who has perfected her bad behavior over the decades, this doesn’t seem to be working well. I try to be diligent about not reinforcing her poor behavior: when she hisses, I won’t leave until she’s quiet; when she runs away I make sure to catch her anyway; and when she bites me, I touch her until she stops. I know that extinction has worked for her in the past, because a few years ago Mariah used to bate whenever I brought her back into the cage. When I figured out that I was reinforcing her behavior by then untying her and putting her on the ground, I stopped. I made her get back on the glove and sit patiently for a few moments, then went forward as normal. Now, two years later, this behavior is still gone.

Extinction has definitely worked well for Stu. Unless Stu is seriously angry at me, he won’t play batbird, and even then he won’t do it for more than a minute (compared to the 10 minutes I had to wait initially for gravity to overwhelm his stubborn streak). K2 has learned, too, that I want him to spin on his perch rather than fly off, though we’ll both admit he’s not sure WHEN I want it… and sometimes he does it repetitively in order to get me to leave (which I won’t).

These behaviors have had results, and make sense. But some others I am more prone to calling superstitions, because frankly I don’t recall them ever having worked, and the fact that the animal still insists on trying them is bizarre and hilarious.

K2 comes up with a lot of new behavior. He is only now beginning to grasp the concept of clicker training as a way of getting him to do the same thing every time; before, he thought that my presence with the whistle meant “Behave as batshit crazy as possible.” On day 5, he started displaying one of my least favorite behaviors, which I referred to as WFBP, or “Fly at the wall, the floor, the bow perch, and the other perch!” What was most confusing about this behavior was it wasn’t something I was deliberately rewarding: he would do it immediately after the whistle, as I was placing the mouse, so by the time he got back to the main perch there would be a mouse. I just had no way of informing him that he was getting the mouse WITH the whistle, not with the WFBP insanity.

Stu is pretty convinced that if he hops back and forth between the ground and the stump a few times, something magical will happen. I’m not sure if he does his little Lorax impression to get more mice (as he is voracious) or if he does it to get me to leave, but sometimes he’ll look at me expectantly and then increase the distance he jumps like if he just jumps far enough, I’ll give him whatever it is that he wants.

The only superstition I can identify of Mariah’s is that she will occasionally hoot when she gets a mouse. Since that just makes whoever’s feeding her smile and stare fondly at her (versus leaving, or giving her another mouse) I can’t imagine what she think s she’s going to accomplish with that one. It is adorable, though.