Speaker: Donna Riner --- Donna Riner, Assistant Manager, Eagle Creek Park Ornithology Center B.A. Environmental Biology, DePauw University 2020 (Email: Donna.Riner@Indy.Gov) (Sponsored By: Karen Bumb)(ID: 1913)
Join Donna Riner, for a presentation about her experience attending Avian Behavior International's Bird of Prey Workshop in Escondido, California. During this presentation you will get an inside look at how avian behavior science and progressive training techniques from this experience are applied at the Ornithology Center within their raptor ambassador program.
Program: Live and Zoom: Inside the Bird Brain: Training Birds of Prey
Speaker: Donna Riner, BA, Assistant Manager, Eagle Creek Park Ornithology Center
Introduced By: Rebecca Lomax-Sumner
Attendance: NESC: 92, Zoom: 26
Guest(s): None
Scribe: Rebecca Lomax-Sumner
Editor: Ruth Schmidt
View a Zoom recording of this talk at: 12022024 Today's Program
Today’s entertaining and informative program was presented by Donna Riner, who is the assistant manager of the Ornithology Center at Eagle Creek Park. She graduated from DePauw University with a degree in Environmental Biology and worked at Eagle Creek Park as a naturalist. She is in charge of summer camps at the park in addition to her work with the birds. She attended training at Avian Behavior International in Escondido, CA with support from local organizations. This organization is taking bird training to the next level to give the birds at the Ornithology Center the best training and care possible.
Calling someone a bird brain is not a derogatory term. In fact, the neural pathways in mammals and birds are mapped in similar ways. Bird brains are more compact, but not less complex. An example of this is the Peregrine falcon. The bird has to be very smart to dive at 250mph, catch prey in midair, kill it and eat it. Birds can learn super-fast and super well.
The Ornithology Center has seven birds, all of whom are not releasable as the result of an injury such as a window strike or being hit by a car. Because birds’ bones are fragile and have a lattice structure on the inside, they do not heal easily. Some of the birds are imprinted on humans and therefore not releasable.
This is the mission statement of the Ornithology Center:
By providing exemplary care, husbandry training and enrichment for Raptor Ambassadors, we hope to inspire connections between people and the birds they encounter, fostering wonder, stewardship and protection for the natural world.
Donna’s goals at Avian Behavior International (ABI) were:
1. Gain transferable knowledge and experience working with birds of prey
2. Deepen her knowledge of avian behavior and training science
3. Apply skills from ABI and OC training plans, husbandry and aviary design.
The mission statement of ABI:
We are an organization based around progressive training techniques for trainers to explore the importance of ethical training methods, teaching zoo trainers around the world these concepts and ideas to open the doors of the human-animal connection.
Donna’s objectives are to:
Build the bird’s confidence. Give the bird skills to be successful. Shape natural skills and abilities. Recognize every bird is unique, and their training should be too. Employ Operant Conditioning using positive reinforcement and negative reinforcement. Food is the primary element for both positive and negative reinforcement.
She described ABC training:
A is antecedent, or ask, or the cue that triggers the bird’s behavior.
B is behavior, or the bird’s response to the cue.
C is the consequence, or reward.
Her example was a Peregrine falcon trained to put her leashes on and got food as her reward.
Ethology means looking at the natural history of the bird to help inform us in the study of bird behavior. It can be their type of hunting. For example, owls are ambush hunters. Another example is the type of perch a bird prefers. Members at each table discussed the ethology of the Turkey Vulture. How do they find food, are they social, and what is their protective measure? Ornithology Center staff help the birds build confidence by creating predictability in their environment, such as rewarding desired behavior B with reward C (food). They have short daily training sessions with each bird. Example videos were shown.
Avian body language can be used to assess the bird’s health. Is the bird bathing, sunning, and interacting in a normal manner with the staff? If not, that is a sign of illness or that they are uncomfortable in their surroundings.
Donna Riner
