Located 4.5km away from home, landed on roof of a local community member who has seen all the lost-bird posts and has been looking out for her. I also hope that everyone else who may be unfortunate enough to be in our situation will be reunited with their animal family members!
We purchased Ellie, a blue quaker parrot, from a pet shop about 7 years ago. She has her own large cage, and usually has the run of the lounge room as well. On a couple of previous occasions she's escaped from the house before, generally because someone accidentally opened the door while she was out. But those times we would shout out her name immediately, she would circle back, and then land on some tree in the neighbour's house. We would then climb up the tree, hold out a finger, and tell her to "step up", which she would then do.
This time we were washing her cage outdoors at about 11.30am on Thursday. The door of the cage was open a tiny crack, and she slipped out and immediately shot into the sky. Even though we called for her immediately, this time she did not stop. We tried to stay calm and just kept calling, calling, calling her name for many hours. We also went out around the neighbourhood calling her name. We immediately posted news of her escape on the local FB community pages with her photo, asking for members of our local community to keep an eye out for her. We also posted alerts on Pet Alert and Parrot Alert, which posted on Lost and Found Birds in Sydney and Surrounds FB page. We also left messages with 3 local vets, in case she ever gets brought in.
After a few hours the children heard her responding call inside our local primary school 450m away, and tracked her down to a tree on the school grounds. Unfortunately the tree was 50m tall, and Ellie was on the tallest branch, preening away. She would not move even though we tried calling her, got her familiar cage out, put out all the bird treats. We had to leave the school grounds when the gates had to be locked by 6.30pm. After that we could no longer hear her call. When we returned at 5.30am the next morning (Friday), we could not hear anything and she seemed to have left.
We continued walking and riding around the neighbourhood all Friday. We played quaker parrot noises from a speaker in our yard. But we could not hear her any more within walking/riding distance. We were very worried, but hoped that she knew to keep away from low ground (predators), and that we had put her cage in the yard often enough that she could recognise and identify noises and dangers.
On Friday night it rained and was cold. On Saturday morning around 8am, I received a comment to my local community FB post, saying she has been sighted in the member's yard. When I responded, a wonderful young lady (we'll call her Missy) said she had managed to coax Ellie to her and already had her contained. Apparently Ellie had landed in a tree in her yard. Missy is very familiar with birds and has an aviary of parakeets of her own. When she heard a different parrot noise, she went out to investigate and saw Ellie in the tree, preening in the rain. Missy had seen my community FB post 2 days ago, and even thought to herself she would love to see the bird! Since Ellie is of unusual colouring - a BLUE quaker parrot - there's probably very little doubt that she is our bird. She managed to persuade Ellie to come closer by playing quaker parrot sounds on her phone, she offered Ellie bird treats (apple slice and sunflower seeds), until Ellie stepped up onto her finger. She then managed to bring Ellie into her house, stayed with her while a family member got a small cage, then she contained her inside the small cage until we went to pick her up.
Ellie had ended up flying 4.5km from our house. The place she eventually ended up at was actually the opposite direction from the primary school we first sighted her. I think the wet weather overnight persuaded her to finally come down and look for people, and she instinctively found someone with a lot of parakeets. We also have other another parrot and lots of finches at home, so maybe the similar bird noises attracted her. When she got home she was so hungry and so tired, and she just went to her tent and slept for a long time.
I think the most important thing to do with lost birds is to make the news known to the LOCAL community immediately. In this regard, I think organisations like Lost Pet Finders, Pet Alert and Parrot Alert etc can be very helpful in helping owners to spread the news ASAP, and as widely LOCALLY as possible. It would be very comforting to know that such an organisation can help us get news out to every "lost and found page" available, because often we have no idea where to post. Our neighbour Missy's FB profile shows that not only is she in our local community page, she's also a member of the Lost and Found Birds in Sydney and Surrounds FB page. So maybe seeing the news of Ellie in multiple pages really brought the news to her attention. It was also surprising to us that Ellie managed to cover more than 5km within 2 days. So this is something to keep in mind when searching. Clearly with 5km range to cover, it would no longer be possible to cover the distance on foot.
We were also just extra, extra lucky that Missy is so wonderful with birds and had all the skills and tools ready to coax a lost pet bird to her.
To someone else who has lost a pet animal, especially a bird, Do Not Lose Hope! Make the news known to everyone in the local community immediately, then as time passes, extend the reach of your messaging to longer distances. Organisations like Lost Pet Finders would be extremely helpful at this point by messaging vets and communities in a wider range, which may no longer be within the posting ability of the pet owners.
Thank you, and I hope our reunification story reassures some very anxious owners not to lose hope and to stay positive!
