[svolk]

That's absolutely possible to do - and it really helps in building a bond with your bird in addition to getting good exercise.

A question first though:

How old will your bird be when you get him/her? If he/she is still a baby, or even an adult who is not used to navigating out of the cage, it can take time to develop flight skills. I would first make sure that your new sun conure can navigate well - and that can take days or weeks or months. So my first suggestion would be to provide a safe flight environment for them to learn their new environment and begin to navigate before you start on recall training (I started my birds out in a small room, well lit, windows / mirrors covered at first - until they know the room layout well). But like you mentioned, start with the step up training.

After they've settled in and can navigate well, Positive reinforcement is a great way to teach recall flighting. You can use a clicker to help (I've never used a clicker, but many people have). What I do with my budgie is have a treat hidden in my hand. Have a key word/words that you use consistently when trying to teach recall - I use "Come here!" and I also extend my hand, index finger out as a perch, and then slightly gesture my hand and give it a slight wave/flick towards me. I'm not really consistent in training this, but even now without being consistent I can use the words and the gesture and he'll come and I don't even need the treat anymore. At first my biggest thing that I had to be skilled at was being QUICK with the treat. Treat them AS SOON as they do the desired task - I had to get some practice to get my coordination skills and quickness down pat (along with having a hidden treat in my hand most all the time LOL).

You're right to start out with a short distance when you move to recall training and gradually take it further away. And eventually you can have them recall from another room entirely - but as I said earlier, flight skills like turning corners and things like that can take awhile. It's like a baby starting to walk, just because they have legs doesn't mean they can use them well right away - same with wings ;)

There are some who have trained their birds to fly back to their cages on command. I don't even need this because my budgie flies back to his cage when he's tired anyways. And no one puts up a fuss even when I want them to return. But it can be done.