Queensland man Brody Murray, 29, is taking flight on social media after sharing stunning videos of his two pet macaws free-flying across the many stunning backdrops of Australia.
Murray has spent the last two years establishing Queensland’s first free-flight group of birds, and the videos have already gained him over 22,000 followers on Instagram , according to ABC .
Brody Murray started the group and began sharing videos of his free-flying macaws as a way to show the community that pet birds do not need to be, and should not be, kept in cages their whole lives. Murray said he now has dozens of fellow bird owners he regularly meets up with to let their pets fly free, and that there is growing interest from people across Australia.
Despite creating a positive space and allowing his two pet macaws to fly free, Murray has received some criticism online.
“There were a lot [of people] who believed that birds are meant to be in cages and if you take them outdoors, the risks of losing them is extremely high and a lot of people are afraid of predator birds,” he said.
“I’d get messages saying, ‘This is stupidity at the finest’, ‘You’re going to lose your bird’, ‘You’ll never get it back and you don’t deserve to get it back.”
Despite receiving negative comments from some viewers, Murray’s free-flying macaws are gaining in popularity with his last video posted on Instagram receiving almost 8,000 views in the past 14 hours.
In the video, Murray is seen playing with his macaws as if they were dogs as he rolls them onto their backs to rub their bellies while the birds playfully nip at his fingers. Comparing the birds to dogs is something that Murray does himself.
“It’s really no different to a dog being off the lead and intellectually their abilities and capacity is so much greater than a dog.”
Murray said that the birds need discipline and to be trained, just like a dog, and he learned his free-flight skills from Texas-based trainer Chris Biro.
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“If you’re going to be a responsible parrot owner and you’re going to do something big like free-flight, you need to really invest in training,” he said.
Brody Murray has two macaws that he takes on free-flights: first he had Roku, which is why all his social media is named “Adventures of Roku,” then earlier this year he acquired another beautiful macaw named Korra.
Murray said that despite some of the top breeders in Australia telling him that macaws could not be trained to fly free and return, he kept pushing through and now free-flying macaws is a growing trend across Australia thanks to his stunning footage. Murray is happy to share his wisdom with other bird owners as well.
“There’s developmental stages and at each stage, they develop different sets of skills,” he said.
“The science shows you need to get them before the developmental stage before fledging (developing wing feathers) so you can really impart a lot of the training then and then during fledging.
“You can train free flight to birds that are well past that developmental stage, it’s just a lot harder.”
Murray said he tries to take his two birds out twice a day to let them fly freely. They will generally take a long flight, which is when he shoots the stunning pictures and videos for his Instagram, Facebook , and YouTube pages, and then the birds will come back and play with him on the ground. He even gets his green-winged macaw, Korra, to do some of the shooting and attaches a custom-made camera to a bird harness on the back of her. Those videos give the viewer a real birds-eye view, and also some slight nausea.
“I usually give them about an hour to 90 minutes’ free time — most of the time they’ll fly a bit or just play in the trees,” he said.
Brody Murray also pointed out that the birds get excited and will bob up and down when he asks them, “you want to go for a fly?”, showing not only do they understand what he is saying, but also showcasing how important it is to let caged birds fly free.
[Photo by Filipe Frazao/ShutterStock]