Spirits of the Sky: Making a Difference One Bird At a Time at Healesville Sanctuary

Feel the enchantment of Australia's wild birds in our new podcast episode! Zookeepers Jessica Ratcliff and Megan Whittard help us soar with their feathered friends as we learn about the work of Healesville Sanctuary and its awe-inspiring Spirits of the Sky.

Jessica and Meg share personal stories about favorite childhood animals (not necessarily the birds they work with now) and how their love of animals led to  careers in zoology. Interested in working with animals? Discover the STEM connections with zoology and other animal-oriented career paths.

Interested in ways animal training and human education are similar? Meg and Jessica share similarities as they unravel the techniques behind the Spirits of the Sky demonstrations. I've seen first hand how the wonder of the Australian birds is matched by the respect and care they receive from their human counterparts. We delve into the trust-building and training processes, talking about how positive reinforcement for our feathered friends is not just about performance, but about creating a harmonious space for animals to thrive.

Do they have favorite birds? You'll have to listen to find out, but Jessica and Meg leave us in awe of the birds they work with. Their survival adaptations and unique behaviors remind us of our shared planet and the simple steps we can take to protect it.

Empower your own conservation efforts by listening to this episode, and join Zoos Victoria and Healesville Sanctuary in their work to fight extinction. There are a number of educator resources available too! Also, you can follow along with Dr. Diane's ongoing Adventures in Learning at drdianeadventures.com.

Transcript

Dr Diane: 0:04

Do you hear that? That's the sound of some of Australia's most magnificent birds. Spirits of the sky has been running for decades. It's fresh, it's exciting and it's definitely a highlight of any visit to Healesville Sanctuary. When we went to Melbourne, australia, our friends Kathy and Mike Grace introduced us to this amazing animal haven and they put spirits of the sky on the must-see list for us. What sets spirits of the sky and the Healesville Sanctuary itself apart is the focus on Australia's native wildlife. The dedication to education, care, research and fighting extinction is present throughout. Today, we talk with zookeepers Jessica Ratcliffe and Megan Witterd about their roles at Healesville Sanctuary and how their passion for Australia's birds translates into a unique spirits of the sky educational experience for thousands of visitors each year. Let's explore new ideas about STEM, careers, conservation, wildlife and education.

Dr Diane: 1:07

On today's Adventures in Learning podcast, Wonder curiosity connection. Where will your adventures take you? I'm Dr Diane, and thank you for joining me on today's episode of Adventures in Learning. So welcome to the Adventures in Learning podcast. I'm your host, dr Diane, and you just heard some of the magic from Healesville Sanctuary. I am so excited because this was one of my very favorite places when we were in Australia and today we have not one, but two zookeepers here with us, so please join me in welcoming Jessica Ratcliffe and Megan Witterd to the show. Welcome to the show. So before we start, can you go ahead and just talk a little bit about your own Adventures in Learning? How did you get to do the type of work that you're doing now, like what led to where you are today?

Jessica: 2:16

I was a child and I knew that I wanted to work with animals when I got a little bit older, so after I finished school, I studied science and Suits. Victoria was an institution that really appealed to me because they had really good welfare standards and really good conservation outcomes as well, and so I went down that employment path, and doing the free-flight bird presentations really appealed to me as well, and that's where I landed.

Meg: 2:41

Yeah, like Jessica, I also really loved animals growing up. So as soon as I finished school I went to uni to study zoology. Straight out of there my first job working with animals was doing wildlife presentations at schools and festivals and parties, and I really love just educating people on animals. So when I did make the Moorish Tazoo's Victoria coming to Hillsville Sanctuary and moving to Spirits of the Sky but my presentation was just the spot that I knew I wanted to end up in.

Dr Diane: 3:12

That's amazing, and I'm going to ask you about Hillsville Sanctuary in a moment, but I do want to ask you guys just a question, because you both loved animals so much as kids. What were your favorite animals when you were children?

Jessica: 3:26

I might have probably changed a little bit. I loved dogs, I loved tigers and big cats, but I've always really liked a lot of different animals and I found that I've worked with another over the years and once you get to know them, I fall in love with every species that I work with. So it's really it's quite broad for me now.

Meg: 3:46

Growing up, I loved meerkats and I was obsessed with red pandas, so those are my two favorite animals growing up and I don't know why I love them so much, but those specific ones were, yeah, the ones that I absolutely loved.

Dr Diane: 3:59

There's something just amazing about all of them, isn't there? Yeah, absolutely so. Let's talk a little bit about Healsville Sanctuary. When my family was in New Zealand and Australia, we probably went to seven or eight different wildlife sanctuaries by the time we were done, In fact, we reached a point that my 13-year-old niece would look at us and go seriously, we're seeing more animals. I thought you can't be related to me, but I was so impressed with the overall setup of what you all did the habitat, the space, the education. Can you describe what you do for our listeners who may never have been, and sort of what sets the sanctuary apart?

Jessica: 4:46

So we do a free-flight bird presentation called Spirits of the Sky, and that means that we have an arena that is not covered over, there's no roof or enclosure, and our birds are free to fly. And we fly a number of different Australian parrots and also birds of prey raptors and we're able to talk and interact with people and highlight some of the special adaptations that those birds have got.

Meg: 5:10

Yeah, so we're about an hour out of Melbourne, which means we're in the beautiful Yarra Valley and that has amazing bushland, lots of wildlife. So the whole setting of having our birds free fly when you're out in such a beautiful location it's just really special. So often when you're visiting animals in human care you'll often have a bit of a barrier between you and we take that barrier away, so we have people and animals really close together. You can get right up close and see some really cool adaptations and animal behaviors in the arena.

Dr Diane: 5:42

And one of the things I noted when you all did the Spirits in the Sky presentation is you mentioned that the animals are volunteers, that they're coming in and they're choosing whether they want to be part of the show or not. How many birds are you working with and how do you decide who gets to be the star that day?

Jessica: 6:03

So I'm about 25 different individuals and we do have a plan at the beginning. We have a bit of a running sheet with the birds that we expect and we hope to see. But giving the animals that choice is a really big part of how we work with them nowadays, and so we read their body language. We kind of ask for the consent with the animals to see whether they would like to do a presentation, and then they have the option to opt in or out at any time. So when we open their door for them to fly out, they can choose not to. They can also choose to go home at any point, and I really really like that. It means that we're a little bit more flexible and adaptable with exactly who we might expect to see, but it means that the animals have the choice. So the animals are in control and for me that's everything. It's so much better welfare for them.

Meg: 6:47

Absolutely, and when you give them more choice and more control over how they're spending their day, you actually find that they're more likely to participate in training sessions or interactions with you or presentations. So that's really great to see as well, that they're actually choosing more often to interact.

Dr Diane: 7:06

And how do you, how do you prepare the animals to engage with people? What kind of training goes into that?

Jessica: 7:17

There's often months of training behind the scenes before an animal's ready to be part of presentation, and first of all we want to build trust and rapport with them ourselves. So we just have some interactions that are really low-key and we don't require anything of them and they just learn that we're a safe and comfortable presence. We give them lots of their favorite foods and then we gradually build up training sessions with very easy things that we're asking them to do, that we know that they're going to be successful, and then we'll ask for sort of longer and longer flights or more things that we feel that they're comfortable, and we'll gradually bring in a practice audience with our staff sometimes, and then we might introduce them in a presentation that hasn't got very many visitors in it before we're ready for something like a packed arena of 800 people. But there's a lot of preparation behind the scenes and we want to make sure that their going home behavior is the strongest of all.

Meg: 8:13

Yeah, that's what I'm saying. That's the first thing that we train our birds to do. It's to go home, and that way it's their strongest behavior. So if they ever get a fright or feel uncomfortable, they know they can go home anytime, immediately.

Jessica: 8:26

And then what we're asking them to do once they're comfortable and out. In presentations. This is for every species, so we might want to showcase a different part of their natural behavior. So we have some birds that might do a particular flight, or we have a buzzard that can break open an in-ear egg, which is a fantastic wild behavior and they're all tailored to what those birds are able and comfortable to do.

Meg: 8:46

Yeah, and we'll use props as well during the training session, things like flags and poles, so that they understand what we're asking. We're asking you to go around this pole, so go over this section of the audience, and then what we can do is start to make it smaller or remove it completely and ask them to continue doing that, and then, when we add an audience, they're flying over that part of the audience perfectly, because they understand that's what we want them to do. So, yeah, it's a bit of a partnership. We go at their pace. Some might pick up a new behavior in 30 minutes, some might take a week, some might take months, and we just go with the flow. They're there, the ones in control.

Dr Diane: 9:24

That sounds awful. I think it's like teaching preschoolers Principles.

Jessica: 9:29

So we're talking about positive reinforcement training, and it works for every species, including human animals. Once you figure out what's motivating, what's reinforcing for that particular individual, then we're able to go forwards with that. So that's one of the first things we established, too, is what is really motivating for that particular animal.

Meg: 9:46

And a really cool thing about our training is that if animals ever choose not to participate, or they do something we didn't ask or they do it wrong, there's never any negative consequences. There's no punishment at all. So it's all positive reinforcement they get rewarded or reinforced for the behaviors we ask for, and if not, doesn't matter.

Jessica: 10:05

There's more information for us to think about. How can I set them up better next time so they're more likely to succeed? So when training's done well, it looks like they already know how to do it, because we're asking them to do something where 90% confident they're going to be able to do.

Meg: 10:19

And we can give them more information. If they seem like they're not sure what we're asking, we'll just go back a couple of steps in their training and make it really clear to them so that they can succeed every time.

Dr Diane: 10:30

And I'm hearing things as an educator that I'm going yes, yes, yes, that's exactly what we should be doing for our children as well the idea of setting them up for success, that you're using failure to sort of figure out well, what can we do next? That's all wonderful stuff that easily adapts to the human species as well.

Jessica: 10:51

Absolutely. It's on us really to set them up right, but the animals can't get it wrong, because that's just more information for us.

Dr Diane: 10:59

Absolutely so. What is a typical day or week in your work life like?

Jessica: 11:04

So our days are pretty structured. Every morning we check on the birds and weigh them, which helps us monitor their health, and then we make up their food for the day, which is all nutritionally balanced. We clean their habitats that is part of our day as well and then we have a block of time that's dedicated to animal training every day, and a large part of our day is made up of the presentation. So we do two presentations a day, but there's some time beforehand setting up and placing some things in the right places the presentation itself and then a little bit of pack-up time, and then we do that twice and at the end of the day we just feed out any remaining food that they still might need to eat, give them another check over, and there's things that might pop up from time to time on different days as well, like health checks or making improvements to their habitat and putting in new purchasing and things like that.

Meg: 11:53

Yeah, we'll catch up as a team and do lots of crossover because we share a lot of training and behaviors amongst other keepers, so you want to make sure you're communicating really well with everyone on the team. You might want to add a new fund perched, or you want to make some enrichment for new animals which is sort of like a toy or an activity that's really mentally stimulated. Stimulating for the birds and that's especially important for some of the parrots because they love to problem solve and be challenged, and so we really like to make sure that they're thriving in our care as well.

Dr Diane: 12:27

I love that, and what is it about these birds that draws you to working with them? There's so many different animals at the zoo. What is it about the birds that beats the kangaroos or the koalas or the platypus? Hello?

Jessica: 12:43

I mean, for me my motivation was all about animal training. I find that really interesting and this area in the sanctuary has a lot of time devoted to animal training and we have some really beautiful and unique birds here. So Australia's got some like colorful parrots, a huge range of different birds, some raptors that do some really interesting behaviors, and to have the opportunity to work with those animals and to have so much time devoted to training is just really tick-solid boxes for me.

Meg: 13:11

Yeah, and one of the things that I love is that we, twice a day, let them out into the world, and our birds choose to interact with us, choose to participate in our presentation, and they choose to go home to their habitats and stay with us every day. So I think that's really cool that we give them the opportunity to free fly and they obviously love living with us, love the relationships that they've built with us.

Dr Diane: 13:36

We've got a lot of trust with them and, yeah, so this is always the loaded question that I know parents hate hearing and I'm going to ask it anyway. Do you guys have a favorite?

Jessica: 13:52

I'm glad that you said parents, because I do feel like it's very similar. They are all our children and they're all individually special and I don't want to make anybody feel left out, so I really like working with all of them.

Meg: 14:04

And my favorite is Oka, and Oka is an Australian kestrel, so I have a favorite. When I was feeling you to the team, oka came in as one of our new birds and we just sort of learned together. We went through the journey of building up to getting out into the presentation as a bit of a team and so we really learned a lot of each other and how he learns and how I learn and we sort of have worked together really closely ever since and he just has a special spot in my heart.

Dr Diane: 14:36

Sounds like he was sort of your initial bird that you all bonded.

Meg: 14:41

And exactly the first one that I really connected with.

Jessica: 14:44

I think, and I think oftentimes when you spend extra time with an individual, you do end up appreciating them that little extra bit. So when we are training a new behavior, then we usually have one person who's leading that training and what we often find is that when you're the lead on that training, you're especially close to that bird at that time.

Dr Diane: 15:02

Yeah, Are you tired of same old, same old professional development experiences? Check out what recent workshop participants have to say about doing a workshop with Dr Diane's Adventures in Learning Great hands-on session that included real ideas to incorporate in the classroom. Wonderful, lots of great ideas and fun science experiments. It was great to be able to see how to make connections between the stories and science. If you are looking to raise your game and have a professional development experience that will leave your educators feeling rejuvenated and ready to directly apply ideas into their classrooms, reach out to Dr Diane's Adventures in Learning.

Dr Diane: 15:47

We offer half-and-full-day workshops that examine ways to build connections between multicultural picture books and STEM STEAM experiences for gains across the curriculum. All programs can be tailored to your specific needs, so find out what audiences across the country have been experiencing. Check out Dr Diane's Adventures in Learning at wwwdrdianadventurescom. We hope to be in your school soon. Are there special things that you wish people knew about, the birds that maybe they don't know? Things that you try to highlight in the program, or things that maybe aren't in the program that you feel are really cool?

Jessica: 16:33

I think that animals are a lot more like us than people sometimes realize. They're motivated by very similar things to us. They're intelligent, they form bonds with each other, they want to go towards joy and happiness and fun things that they want to avoid pain and fear, just like us. I think that when we think about them like that, it allows us to approach it with a little bit more compassion. Every animal is as intelligent as it needs to be in its native environment and they're all really quite individual.

Meg: 17:05

I think really similarly, they all have personalities as well. I hope people pick up on that. In our presentations we talk about a lot of the individual birds and they're just so different. But even the female red-tailed black cockatoo and the male red-tailed black cockatoo they're completely different in the way that they interact with us and behave. It's really cool to see different personalities in the animals that you work with.

Meg: 17:32

Some of them you really have to work for months to build up your relationship and your trust. Then it'll click one day and they'll want to fly for you. That's work along the way. Yeah, I would want to. Yeah, it's really special when you finally they just decide one day you know what. I trust you, your safety to me, your home. I'm going to come out and fly because I know you'll be there and you'll be with me while I do it. Other birds they will adapt to anyone and they're pretty happy to fly to anyone's hand. So, yeah, you have some that you really have to work for. You have others that are really just bold and resilient already and it just depends on their personalities.

Dr Diane: 18:11

And what are some of the adaptations that you highlight for your audience? What are some of the things that you want them to learn about Australian birds that maybe they wouldn't know?

Meg: 18:22

Yeah, I can start. One of the really cool things about our Australian parrots is that they are really bright and colorful and they're all perfectly adapted to the habitat that you would find them in. So we've got pink cockatoos that are found in really dry, desert, arid areas, and so that pink you would think it would stand out, but it actually really does blend in. They're predominantly seed feeders as well, so they'll often be down on the ground in the red soil and so they can really blend in. And then you've got eclectus parrots that are only found right at the top of a funnel in Queensland. They're bright green on top, but the females are actually completely red instead because they sit lower down in the shadows. So it's just amazing that all our Australian birds have adapted their coloring for perfect color.

Jessica: 19:08

One of my favorite adaptations is the black breasted buzzard. It's a large bird of prey and they have a really unique behavior where they eat eggs in the wild and that they can swallow small eggs and they can break slightly bigger eggs. But they actually also try and eat emu eggs, which are, you know, in all of us, and it's too big for them to pick up, it's too big for them to break open with their feet or their beak. So they have an adaptation where they pick a rock as a tool and use that to smash into the emu egg, which would give them enough food for about three or four days. And that behavior is instinctive, so they don't need to learn it from their parents, we don't need to train it, and it's just an amazing thing and we're able to demonstrate that in our presentation with a model of an egg that we have, and I just think that's one of the most fascinating animals out there.

Meg: 19:53

Yeah, that's the other cool thing. We have both birds of prey and parrots and so we can actually fly them side by side and say, hey, here's what you know, the adaptations, the predators versus what parrots have in state, and just highlight the differences and how they use their body parts to live a different kind of life.

Dr Diane: 20:13

Oh, that's amazing and I'm so glad you brought up sort of the contrast between the parrots and the birds of prey as well, because you had both that were part of the Spirits of the Sky show and I thought it was just an incredible show and clearly you all have a passion for education because that came through in the show itself. What do you hope that a visitor takes away from their experience at the sanctuary at your show?

Jessica: 20:44

We want to have a good time. We want them to have that interaction and something really awe-inspiring, but we do want people to take away a little bit of an action that they can do themselves as well. So a lot of our animals are facing some challenges in the wild and to help their conservation. Sometimes it seems like it's a big, insurmountable problem, but there are little steps that people can take. So we can encourage individuals to save trees by using recycled toilet paper, and that's just something that anybody can do. It's making a supermarket choice, but it helps those birds out there in the wild. So we want them to come in and have fun, but we can also give them something to take away and do when they get back.

Meg: 21:21

Yeah, and we like to foster just a general appreciation for birds, because obviously we love birds and we know how cool they are, so we really want to highlight all the amazing things about them. So when people do go back to their homes or go on holidays in Australia and they see new species of birds, they've got that appreciation for them as well. They might change their gardens to bring in a lot more native birds as well. So, yeah, we just really like to foster that inspiration and that love for wildlife too.

Jessica: 21:50

I also hope that you know we're talking more and more about the training that we do and how we go about it, and I hope that people are inspired that when they're working with their own pets at home, for example, they can approach things in a way that is much more about choice for those animals. So we don't command our animals to do anything. We're asking them and we're giving them as many options as possible, and I hope that people are listening to that and thinking I could do the same thing with my dog. You know, I could train my cat. I could train my guinea pig, my children or their partner Exactly.

Jessica: 22:21

So in some other sort of an attitude shift. I think that's taking place in the world of animal care and I hope that people can take that away too.

Dr Diane: 22:29

That makes a lot of sense, and we have teachers and families and kids who are listening, and I'm betting there are children out there who love animals and want to do what you do when they grow up, and I love encouraging them to think about zoology and being a zookeeper as a STEM, steam career, because you really are using science and you're using technology and engineering and math and everything that you do. How would you tell a child to prepare for a career like yours? Like if there's a kid at home right now thinking, gosh, I really love my guinea pig or I really love lemurs or I like birds what do they need to do?

Jessica: 23:16

I always encourage kids, if they're passionate, to give it a go. It can seem like an industry that's very competitive, but we need people who are passionate, who would like to go for that. So the pathway for a lot of people is to focus on science when you're in school. So if you have a biology class, you can really be working hard there. And when you go on to university to take some kind of science or conservation related course, and in terms of being more employable in a setting like ours, it's really great if people can have experience working with animals and just to go a little bit above and beyond their own pets. So if you have the opportunity to, say, work with cattle or horses, or maybe you can get a permit to foster wildlife in your local area or volunteer at an animal shelter and that sort of demonstrates that you are able to do the hard work and the dirty work that's involved, but as well as having that science background. So we're really conservation focused and I think it's great that our staff are so across all of that.

Meg: 24:18

Yeah, absolutely. I agree with all of that. It can be really competitive. But you just stand out based on your passion. As long as you've got all of those things behind you, all the science knowledge, you know, if you get the opportunity to head to university or college and you can study zoology or science or any of the life sciences, have that as a base, because everything we do here at conservation organization and everything that we do, from our conservation, breeding and release programs and our rewilding habitats and all of our husbandry work or the way we look after our animals, all of it is science based. So we really do use science every single day in everything that we do.

Jessica: 24:59

And kids like that. You know they're a really good company amongst us because we were all kids that loved animals and you know we never stopped and so just keep going.

Meg: 25:07

We do have the best job in the world, so come and join us.

Dr Diane: 25:10

I love that, All right. So the very last question as you're looking towards the future and you're thinking about conservation and you've made conservation such a huge part of the education program, are there things that bring you hope as you're looking at sort of the big picture? Absolutely.

Meg: 25:28

So Zoo's Victoria really is working towards a future that's rich in wildlife, not just for our generation but for all generations onwards, and so, being part of an organization that is breeding critically endangered mammals and some of the most critically endangered birds in the entire world, as well as amphidians and reptiles, it's really inspiring just to be a part of that organization that is helping to increase our populations out there in the wild and protecting habitat. Yeah, it's the thing that gives me hope, I think, is just being a part of Zoo's Victoria and being a part of that amazing work that we're really doing. I think I've got a little daughter who's just over one, and I'm really excited that she lives in a world where people are fighting for habitat and wildlife and conservation out there Same.

Dr Diane: 26:19

Well, thank you so much, Megan Jessica, for joining us today. I know you have a busy day ahead of you and I appreciate you taking the time out and I will share in the show notes ways that people can follow the amazing work that you all are doing at the Sanctuary and at Zoo's Victoria. Thank you for joining us today. You're welcome. You've been listening to the Adventures in Learning podcast with your host, dr Diane. If you like what you're hearing, please subscribe, download and let us know what you think, and please tell a friend. If you want the full show notes and the pictures, please go to drdianeadventurescom. We look forward to you joining us on our next adventure.