Avian Behavior International

The challenges facing our friends along the bird to bug pipeline can feel enormous, but there are things we can do to make a positive impact. Some of the most useful changes can happen surprisingly close to home. At Avian Behavior Conservancy, our mission is to connect our audience with the conservation needs of birds without making these needs feel insurmountable. It does no...

We know that birds depend heavily on bugs as a food source. And most of us have heard about the steady decline in insect populations worldwide, sometimes called the “insect apocalypse.” But just how bad is it?

A landmark German study followed flying insect populations for 27 years and found a seasonal decline of 76% in insect biomass, with losses reaching 82% during mi...

Earlier this year, our team was faced with a common problem. We started opening up one of our birds to different trainers, and her behavior broke down rapidly. It was so fast that I was going to get her out for an event one morning and was quite surprised that she would hardly even look at my glove, when only a few days earlier it seemed I had been flying her...

Have you ever heard of the Butterfly Effect? It’s a concept from chaos theory stating that a tiny change at the beginning of a system can have a huge impact on its outcome. A prime example of how this concept plays out can be seen in the environment. The species within an ecosystem are so interconnected that when one struggles, all others are impacted. We have recently seen t...

Each year we host an Advanced Animal Training workshop, which attracts not just professional bird trainers, but companion parrot owners, falconers, and animal educators from around the world. But one of the questions we get when people are trying to figure out what workshop suits them best is what is an “advanced animal trainer?” How do I know if this worksho...