News From The Mews

Spring is a busy time for both me and the birds. With the breeding season in full swing, they fill their days with nest building and advertising for potential mates. And I get busy repairing perches that they destroy in their nesting pursuits. I fixed up Aldo's perch this week with extra attachments to give him something to rip other than the base layer rope. He got a few loops of purple Coban bandage wrap, an extra layer of rope, and some newspaper rings. Hopefully that will keep him busy!

  Carson the Red-tailed Hawk received a special delivery this week: carefully crafted origami flowers. While we thought she would appreciate the time we spent creating her bouquet, she seemed more interested in the stunning red vase.

Last week I wrote about using the ABC's of behavior to analyze Aldo's challenging behavior of flying to the door when Jenny or Heaven tried to enter his mew. After noting all of the antecedents and consequences that were associated with this unwanted behavior, we had to make a hypothesis and a plan to change the behavior. There seemed to be two consequences that could be driving the behavior. Was he flying to the door to chase the scary trainers away? Or was he trying to access his food more quickly? One of the antecedents on the list stood out to me: his weight was low. That seemed like a good indication that he might be feeling extra hungry and impatient to get his food, so we decided to test out that hypothesis.  Next we needed a plan to reduce the annoying behavior of flying to the door. We decided to: Feed Aldo extra food to increase his weight. Hopefully he wouldn't feel as desperate to get to the food. Remove the perch next to the door. If the perch doesn't exis...

A few weeks ago, Jenny and Heaven let me know that Aldo the American Kestrel was giving them a hard time. Whenever they tried to enter the mew, Aldo flew to the perch in front of the door. They couldn't get in while he blocked the entrance. Normally I would toss out a few suggestions for Jenny and Heaven to try and see what happens, like throwing spaghetti at the wall. But this time I wanted to try a more structured approach.  A functional assessment is a detailed process that analyzes a behavior within the environmental factors that surround it. The structure is based in the ABC's of behavior: Antecedent : This is the "stage," everything in the environment that happens before the behavior. It can be broken down into the Distant Antecedent (relevant background conditions) and Immediate Antecedent (what immediately triggers the behavior).  Behavior : What does the animal do?  Consequence : What happens after the behavior? Does the animal gain something they wanted, li...