Our History

Land On Sky began with a simple statement from Balinda Strosnider’s late son Landon. 

“Mom, keep up the bird stuff, you’re good at it.” 

Landon could see his mother’s love for the birds that she was training and joy presenting them to the public and wanted her to continue doing what she loved because it was having a positive impact on every heart she touched.

At that time, Balinda was volunteering in the Education department at a wildlife rehabilitation center in Phoenix, Arizona. That same year, she met John Glitsos, another educator there.  As they traveled to schools, civic events, and other venues to do shows, they realized that they shared a passion for animals and animal training. 

In 2016 they traveled to northern Arizona to watch the 4th of July parade in Flagstaff. After the parade, they decided to take a small detour and see the bird of prey show at Bearizona in Williams. Bearizona is an outdoor drive-through zoo with some walk-through exhibits and a small theater for bird shows. They decided to stay for the show, just to see how it compared to what they were doing educational shows.  

They were stunned. The show literally blew them away! Animals in the show were exhibiting natural behaviors in a natural setting, unencumbered by leashes or restraints of any kind, and flying from perch to perch right over the audience in breathtaking proximity to everyone. Unbelievable! After the show, they found Susan, the show’s producer, and blurted out the obvious question, “how do you do that? Susan said that there was world-class training available for aspiring animal trainers at Natural Encounters in Florida. That was the beginning.

Soon they were in Florida training parrots for the Indianapolis Zoo and learning the science and skills necessary to train using positive reinforcement techniques.  These techniques are based on psychology and science and depend upon giving animals choice and control, resulting in excellent behavior recall on cue.  An important tenant of the training technique is building a relationship with the animals based on mutual respect and trust.  

Working hard on their training skills and knowledge, both Balinda and John became Certified as Professional Bird Trainers in 2018. They signed up as volunteers at the Sonoran Desert Museum as part of the Raptor Free Flight Program, which is considered by many in the zoological world to be the premiere demonstration of raptor flight for audiences. In 2019 John spent every Monday for nine months driving to Tucson to be a member of the Free Flight cast, and learn everything he could about training, animal husbandry, and animal behavior.

John and Balinda have been back to NEI for more advanced, raptor-specific training, and have been incorporating what they learn to train two ducks, a crow, a Harris’ Hawk, and a Eurasian Eagle Owl.  

In 2017 they both joined the International Association of Avian Trainers and Educators and started attending the annual conferences.  Meeting trainers from world-renowned facilities like Disney World, the San Diego Zoo, the Minnesota Raptor Center, Tracey Aviary, the Cascades Raptor Center, Carolina Raptor Center, the Peregrine Fund, and many others were the highlight of these conferences for them both.  

In 2020 Balinda decided they should present a scholarly paper at the conference in the Dominican Republic.  It would be an international conference and the perfect opportunity to talk about how volunteers could incorporate and spread the word about positive reinforcement training at any facility.  John was skeptical, to say the least, but he decided to go along because it might be a chance to showcase his improvisational comedy skills as part of their presentation.  They won the High Flyer Award, for the best paper!  It was an honor for both of them, especially since they were selected by their peers in the animal training industry.  Wow!

Now they are busy raising Garfunkel and…