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Sunny the red crested turaco is being trained to be an ambassador, Jessi is trying something she's never done with a turaco before, will it work?

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Hi, everyone!

Welcome backÂ to Animal Wonders! I'm Jessi, and this is Sunny the red crested turaco.

There's always something new happening here and it's so fun to share updates, but when an animal has a breakthrough in training, I get especially excited. So today I'm excited to show you what I've been working on with Sunny in order forÂ her to become an ambassador for her speciesÂ in public presentations! [CHEERY INTRO MUSIC]. Just so you know, we have Cheeks the rabbitÂ  hanging out over here in his very favorite spot.

Cheeks is very old. He's in palliative care,Â  and we're just keeping him comfortable. And back to Sunny here!

She is actuallyÂ  an amazingly calm and friendly turaco. Her original owner loved her dearly and spentÂ  a good amount of time with her as a baby. So even though she's now an adult, she'sÂ  retained this super interactive personality,Â Â  which is really special but notÂ  normally how turacos behave.Â  So I want to be clear and let you knowÂ  that turacos don't make good petsÂ Â  because their care isn't easy to manage in aÂ  human home and they tend to be very flighty.Â  Also they eat a lot of soft foods, so theirÂ poop is also very soft and liquidy, and it's justÂ really gross to cleanÂ  the splatter off the floor and walls.Â  Also I want to mention that this is Sunny's coldÂ weather enclosure.

She has a larger outdoor aviaryÂ space when the weather is warm enough. Okay, I met Sunny about 3 months ago, and she's been happy to jump onto my arm orÂ shoulder and she'll even let me pet her a bit.Â  But she's not like a parrot where they justÂ  chill on your hand while you walk around.Â  As soon as I start moving,Â  Sunny jumps and flies off.Â  Which means I have a lot of work to do if my goalÂ is to get her to the point where she's comfortableÂ traveling to schools for our educational outreach. So my first couple months with Sunny,Â I really just wanted to get to know herÂ better and see what she tolerated andÂ what her level of interest in training would be.

The first thing I wanted to establish was a simpleÂ â€œcome hereâ€ cue, so I could communicateÂ that I wanted her to jump onto my arm.Â  I chose this because she was already doingÂ the behavior and it was an easy way to get her thinking about receiving a reward for an action. Sort of a soft opening for positive reinforcementÂ training that would get moreÂ structured as time went on.Â  The next thing I wanted to establish was aÂ  scale behavior so I could monitor her weight.Â  Weighing a bird is one of the bestÂ  ways to assess their overall healthÂ Â  since they tend to hide any illness and theÂ  only sign of that illness is weight loss, which you'll only know if you're regularly weighingÂ  them and know what their normal weight is.Â  So I simply transferred the â€œcome hereâ€ cueÂ  to the scale perch, and we were good to go.Â  These behaviors were established in her outdoorÂ  aviary so I was fully in her enclosure with her,Â Â  which made things much easierÂ because I never felt the need to be cautious of her flying away from me. But now that she's moved indoors into thisÂ space, I'm changing things up a bit so myÂ communication with her can get more precise.Â  I've chosen to start her formal training,Â  and that starts with a target behavior.Â  Targeting is when the trainee touches a specificÂ  part of their body to a designated object.Â  Often with a dog or horse you'll have themÂ  target their nose to a closed fist like that,Â Â  and with elephants, zookeepers can haveÂ them target their foot to a stationÂ for stress free nail trims.

So target training isÂ incredibly useful for any species. Instead of just being able to communicateÂ Â  where I want her to hop to, I want to be able toÂ  ask her to turn around, stay still, go in a crate,Â Â  or any number of other movements that I wouldn'tÂ  be able to explain with just a â€œcome hereâ€ cue.Â  So my goal is to target train Sunny to the pointÂ  where I can use the target to establish a flightedÂ recall, which is just like asking your dog toÂ  â€œcomeâ€ and they run to you from a distance.Â  Alright, first things first! I choseÂ my tools: a target stick with an easilyÂ identifiable ball at the end, a clicker, andÂ her favorite treats, which are blueberries.Â  Here's what happened on our veryÂ  first target training session!Â  Sunny's first reaction was an enthusiasticÂ  bite, which I thought was promising.Â  But then her following behaviorÂ  told me she was not happy about it.Â  It seemed to frustrate her that the ball wasn'tÂ  food, and she didn't make the connection thatÂ Â  biting the target ball resulted inÂ  her getting a blueberry right after.Â  Also the clicker was very startling for her andÂ didn't help the situation, so I decided to ditchÂ it and just go with a verbal marker. â€œGood!â€Â  So this first attempt was not what I expected, andÂ it definitely was not what I was hoping for.Â But I didn't give up!

Our second target training attemptÂ was just as confusing and frustrating for her. So you can see that her first response is toÂ bite the target ball, but then youÂ can see that frustration right after.Â  I was concerned that she wasn't makingÂ  any connection between doing an actionÂ Â  and getting a reward, and she was beginningÂ  to actively move away from the target ball.Â  I needed to reassess my attempts at communicatingÂ  because what I was doing wasn't working.Â  So on our third target training session,Â  I changed things up and instead of usingÂ Â  a target stick and ball, I decided to switch to aÂ  smaller target that didn't resemble a large berry,Â Â  which seemed to just really frustrate her. The porcupine quill target was much better.Â Â  She wasn't scared of it, but she stillÂ  wasn't making the connection between,Â Â  â€œTouch this thing and you'll get a treat.â€ So I ended up trying to do some baitingÂ Â  by showing her the blueberry in hopes thatÂ she would touch the target by accident orÂ eagerness and I could reinforce that behavior.

And it kind of worked, but I still wasn't seeingÂ Â  that she had made the connection betweenÂ  touching the target and getting the treat.Â  Our fourth target training sessionÂ  is where things got interesting! It's not an unusual occurrence in theÂ  animal training world that sometimesÂ Â  you think an animal just doesn't get what you'reÂ  trying to communicate and you end the session,Â Â  and the next day you come back and it's like theyÂ  magically understood it after a night's sleep.Â  Sometimes it takes a little time for theÂ brain to recognize the pattern of rewardÂ and then you'll see the change in behavior. So watch what Sunny does when I present the target in our fourth target training session. [GASP] She nibbles it!

I was surprised, so of course I hadÂ  to confirm that she would do it again,Â Â  andâ€¦ she does it again! And again and again! Even perched on my arm, she targets.

Okay, so now I have to make sure she's actuallyÂ understanding that she has to touch the targetÂ wherever it is, and to do that I position itÂ so she has to move her head in a differentÂ position than just right in front of her.Â  And you can see she turns to touch it and thenÂ  bends down to touch it in a different position.Â  So, Sunny had a breakthrough trainingÂ session! She had me worried there for a bit.Â  And now I'd like to do anotherÂ training session on camera to see if she still remembers from the last time. I'm also interested to see how well she can focus with the camera, tripod, and lights in the room.

Remember: my goal is to get her traveling to newÂ locations with new sightsÂ and sounds at each place.Â  So continuing to expose her to unfamiliar objectsÂ is a good way to desensitize her to things sheÂ may encounter in the future. Alright, here we go Sunny! Are you so excited?

Look at you! Alright, I've got my target stick andÂ a blueberry ready to go! AndÂ Sunny's definitely ready to go.Â  Hi, sweetheart!

Can we doÂ  a quick little target here?Â  Good girl! You wanna come on up? Good girl!

You can get yourÂ  blueberry for that. Nice!Â  And let's get herâ€¦ Good! Alright, that was awesome.Â I'm gonna see if I can get her toÂ turn a little bit further this way.Â  Good girl!

She's very distractedÂ by other things, but I'd like to see ifÂ I can get her up onto my other arm here.Â  Good girl! Thank you. I'll try and get her to turn aroundÂ this target.

Do you see the target?Â  Good! Nice job. Alright, we're gonna go back in her enclosure.

You wanna hop on there? Good. And we're gonna try to target from here.Â  I'm gonna see if I can get her to moveÂ Â  a little bit more with this target thisÂ  time because she obviously remembers it.Â  So let's see if she'll go away from me.

Good!Â  And back toward me a little bit? Oh, she's stepping toward it! Yes!

Oh my gosh, I'm so excited. You know what, I'm going to end it right on thatÂ one. She gets one last treat for being awesome.

And short and sweet. Oh, that was so good! Sunny, you're amazing!

Yes you are! What was most exciting is that, not only did she remember to target and howÂ that worked, but she was moving her head around.Â Â  She moved away from me, which meant that sheÂ  understood that the food wasn't coming fromÂ Â  only me, that she had toÂ  go touch the target first,Â Â  and then she would get the reinforcementÂ  from me. And then, she took steps toward it,Â Â  which is the next step, which is awesome!

Training is always such a unique experience with each individual because no two animalsÂ train exactly the same, so it's always exciting!Â  And though I've worked with several turacos in myÂ  career, I've never had one target trained before.Â  Turacos are just such stunning birds! Sunny, you're amazing. Thank you for being so awesome!

And thank you for watching Animal Wonders, which is produced by Complexly. IfÂ you want to keep imagining the worldÂ complexly with us, check out Bizarre Beasts. Once a month, hosts Hank Green and SarahÂ Suta introduce you to a new bizarre beast andÂ  explore what makes these animals so weird to us.Â  From birds whose babies have claws onÂ  their wings, to lizards with glowing bones,Â Â  the show examines the how and why of some ofÂ  the world's most amazingly strange critters.Â  And if you want to take a bizarre beastÂ home, check out the Bizarre Beasts pinÂ club!

The links for the channel and theÂ  pin club are in the description below!Â  I hope you enjoyed watching Sunny, ourÂ  very own, very sweet Bizarre Beast.Â  Thanks, and I'll see you next week! Bye! [BOLD OUTRO MUSIC].