We all learn as we go through our lives. Some of life’s lessons are taught in the harshest of ways when someone, or something, pays for our errors or lapses in judgment, leaving us to suffer not only loss, but guilt.
Sometimes other people’s actions are unthinkable to us. Some can be appropriately described as acts of cruelty or neglect. Others are the result of preoccupation, something we are ALL guilty of with our busy lives. We have to be careful not to condemn someone whose heart was in the right place, even though their mind was apparently not.
The one thing that used to infuriate me with certain bird owners is carelessness, particularly when it involved an escaped bird. I would be kind and sympathetic on the outside, but my thoughts went to: “How could you be so irresponsible? You’ve heard all the warnings. This is YOUR fault!”
Back several years ago, I had an experience that forever changed me and my judgmental tendencies where birds are concerned. One of my own birds escaped. I DID heed all the warnings, and yet, one small miscalculation led to the loss of one of my precious cockatiels.
I have birds of all sizes. Living in an apartment, as I did then, I had to come up with creative ways to allow all of them out of cage time while keeping the difference species separated for safety reasons. I bird-proofed the bathroom off of my bedroom for the use of the smaller bird’s playtime.
In the living room, where the cockatoos were caged, I had opened the sliders to let in the fresh, spring air. The bedroom door was closed and the bathroom door, where the cockatiels were playing, was ajar. I felt a draft and turned around to see that my cat had pushed open the bedroom door which was not latched. The air movement further opened the bathroom door, frightening one of the cockatiels into flying out of the bathroom, out of the bedroom and finally out the sliders. He was gone.
After searching for hours, I went online to post a lost bird alert. I was mortified in having to admit my carelessness. If only I had carefully latched the bedroom door… I was always so careful and so conscientious. How could I let this happen?
It was a mistake, but my attention was not fully on the birds as it should be when they are not in the safety of their cages. I had left them in a situation that led one of my babies to its probable death (I still hold out hope that he found his way to a caring human who is taking the very best care of him). I don’t mind admitting that my impatience with other people’s mistakes has diminished.
Often, people’s worst mistakes don’t come from a place of carelessness. What I have discovered is that while people may hear the warnings, they are not always in possession of the facts that would make them act in accordance. In the instance of birds that have flown off, many people are unaware of these simple FACTS:
- Fact # 1 – Birds with clipped wings certainly CAN fly.
- Fact # 2 – Birds WILL leave the safety of your shoulder when confronted with a loud noise or sudden motion.
- Fact # 3 – In their fear and confusion, birds that have flown off are unlikely to return to you regardless of your bonding.
- Fact # 4 – You never really fully know your bird or how it will behave in unusual circumstances.
This information might be what stops someone from taking unnecessary risks in the future. It’s easy to criticize, but providing knowledge is a better means of getting everyone on board with parrot safety. You can only be considered negligent if you are in possession of the facts and choose to ignore them.
Those who stand in judgment of others might feel that their expertise is superior and that the precautionary measures they take will keep bad things from happening to them. In the typical day, that might be true. However, in the untypical day, the one where the car breaks down, or where the workload at their job has been especially heavy and stressful, they, too, might find their attentions are elsewhere or that their memory has failed them. It is in these circumstance that the unthinkable most often happens.
Please be compassionate about other people’s mistakes. Never feel that you are above making these same mistakes yourself. Thank you to those who are humbly willing to share yours so that we might all learn. We owe this to each other so that another bird and bird owner, perhaps you, might not have to suffer a similar fate.
Author Patty Jourgensen specializes in avian health, behavior and nutrition and has been working with and caring for rescue birds since 1987.
43 comments
Just a quick note. I have actually also adopted two lost birds. One was a blue parakeet that decided to come visit when I had my birds on the back porch. It is screened in, My birds were socializing and all of a sudden I heard a new voice and there was a blue parakeet climbing the screen on the outside of the porch. I went out and he let me catch him easily. I put him in a cage by himself with food and water. Poor fellow perched in the food dish and never got out of it the rest of the day. The other bird was a cockatiel that a neighbor found in her garage. She brought the bird to me since I have birds. I do not know how old she was then, but she lived with me for eight years before she died. She acted wild when she was first caught, but in time she became a wonderful pet.
We too lost our baby (macaw 2 yr.old) put posters up and lo and behold the kind people of local people who lived on the cheaspeake bay located our baby and i was able to “talk” her down the following day. You could tell she was trying to get to my husband and me but didnt know how to fly down. She utimultely climbed down from the tree. Lisa. Gaithersburg ,MD
I have a cockatiel named Max who i love. My friend has an amazing one called Birdy. He acquired Birdy when he flew into his bedroom window 7 years ago. Last year Birdy decided to go fly about again, after crawling out of a small hole in the mesh in the window guard. He disappeared and wasnt heard from for 6 weeks. One day my friend got a call from the RSPCA (GB animal rescue) to say that Birdy had flown into someone elses window 30 miles away, and they had reported it to the RSPCA, Where he had been for the other 5 weeks only Birdy knows, but he certainly knows that humans are friendly, and when he has had enough freedom he flies into anyones window to be fed and looked after. Lucky Birdy to be re-united with his owner must be nothing short of a miracle.
Well, we thought we had lost our Cockatiel for good, but after putting an ad in the local paper I rec’d a call the next day saying they may have my bird in their tree (about 1km away) so we high tailed it out the door, looking high and low, we were searching for 2 days after we had got the call. My husband could hear her in the trees, to this day I still don’t know how he heard her as I did not. Finally on the 6th day I was about to give up hope as we did not hear her cries anymore, so I tried my luck and drove down this different street and I FINALLY I heard her and saw her circling above, she flew to the tree that I was standing under so with a seed cup in one hand and a towel over my shoulder she came down from the tree once branch at a time and then onto the 6 foot fence and then flew to my hand, I then slowly covered her over with the towel…..and then ran like the dickens to my car, saying out loud to myself ‘I got my bird back" I got my bird back" off to the Vet she went and she was fine. Unbelievable week,.. I did not think that I would ever see her again if it wasn’t for the lady calling me or my Husband and all his hope in finding her. I still have her today and this was 6 years ago.
I lost my beloved budgie – Parry the Parakeet – decades ago, and I still have nightmares where my birds escape – just knowing that others have experienced this same pain is comforting as all these years I blamed my father for being so careless as to open the screen door at the cottage, where Parry loved to perch. I thought that he was getting rid of my friends, but after reading Patty’s words (and maturing considerably since then) I realize that he, too, was preoccupied. Since that time I have owned a number of birds — it took me about 30 years to finally buy another budgie — and when my last budgie, Smudge, died, he was so irreplaceable that I next bought a parrotlet. Similar to what has been described by many others in this discussion, “Peepadeep” was startled by my bashing a bag of frozen vegetables on the kitchen counter – and flew from my shoulder, directly in the path of the next bash (within a micro-second). I was of course horrified, but fortunately, he was undamaged except for a lot of bruising. That was just over a month ago, and every experience is one of learning – especially to avoid being complacent as our pets must be constantly supervised.
Last year my husband was in the back yard holding our blue and gold macaw and our neighbor’s son screamed and Topaz flew away. He landed on the neighbors roof 3 doors down and across the street. I went over thinking Topaz would come down if I called him and all he did was walk back and forth on the gutter, telling me to “Come on” Luckily there was a cable guy in the neighborhood and he was kind enough to let us use his ladder. My husband climbed up and Topaz walked to his hand and stepped up. We were very luck that Topaz was scared after flying and did not take off again when he saw the ladder. We now keep in in the house and no more adventures in the back yard.
Patty — Don’t know if you live in the Northern Virginia area, but I will tell you an uplifting story: About 3 years or so ago, a friend was outside her office on a smoke break when a cockatiel flew down and landed on her shoe. It was cold and shivering, so she picked him up and brought him inside, where a box was quickly found and the bird was snugged in, surrounded with paperr towels. She was going to bring it to me (since I have birds), but one of her co-workers had just lost his cockatiel to old age, and so he took the bird home. Last I knew, the bird was happy and healthy, and he and his new person loved each other dearly. So there CAN be some happy endings, at least for the bird.
I actually had a friend I work with who found a cockateil sitting on a branch outside his apt window… In Lexington KY. My friend gave the bird to me and I’m still raising him. If it helps any of you, I found and care for a bird that escaped. That’s proof that they can be rescued.
When we lived just west of Syracuse, NY, I took my loving Alexandrian Parrot, Romeo, out to see all the commotion on our street as the Village Wide Garage Sale was going on. He took flight and our family followed him all over town until he landed up very high in a pine tree, but would not come down, no matter how much we pleaded, begged and bribed. He took off again, up high where we could not see him. We eneded up putting flyers all over town, posting an ad in the nespaper, etc. We did get numerous calls of sightings-he was eating out of neighborhood bird feeders. Finally, the next spring, our breeder (who had banded Romeo) got a letter from a family in Pennsylvania that they had Romeo and that he was doing fine. They were unwilling to return him to us, feeling that we had mistreated him by letting him get away in the first place. My heart still aches for him. We have a new bird, a powder blue Indian Ringneck named Norm. I take absolutely NO chances with him, always making sure he is safely put away when I am leaving the house, or putting him in his carry cage whenever I take him outside. Sometimes I call Norm Romeo by mistake. I miss him but am happy that he is with a loving family. I regret ever taking him outside without a cage.
Five years ago this year (the anniversary was June 1) I lost my blue-headed Pionus when I took him outside with me to get the mail with me and to get some sun. I was 19 at the time and he’d just had his first birthday in February. I had taken him outside with me before on multiple occasions, both in a cage and on my hand/held to my chest without any incident. But I hadn’t clipped his wings in awhile and he had all his primary and secondary flight feathers. I’d also let him fly around the house, so his flight muscles were in good shape and he knew how to fly pretty well. As I was heading up the driveway to go back inside, a shadow of a bird passing by overhead scared him and he got his feet free of my finger and thumb, jumped off my hand and started flying away. Now, I thought he’d just land in the grass in the backyard and scream for me, so I just stood there like a g-ddamn idiot. He just kept on flying and made a right turn. That’s when I started running after him. He crossed my backyard, crossed the neighbor’s, made another right turn and by the time I made to the street I had lost sight of him. He’s banded with a blue aluminum ID band on his right ankle, so I put flyers out all over the neighborhood and the city and in every vet’s office I came across, but it’s been five years and he still hasn’t come home. I pray that a kind-hearted, caring person found him and that he’s living with them now, happy and healthy and loved. But I live with the guilt and self-loathing and “if I had only”s every waking hour of every day and I still have dreams. Nightmares, I guess. Five years of lost sleep, five years of wondering what happened to him and hoping that he’s still alive and heathy and happy and loved. The hardest part is not knowing and never being able to know.
I took my cockatiel camping last year. While waiting in her cage on the picnic table while I was loading up the car (my back was turned toward her), she unlocked the cage and crawled up to the top and was waiting for me to “get the show on the road”. When I banged the trunk of the car down solidly, she was frightened and flew into the forest, sqwaking loudly, fortunately. I followed her by sound, leaping over poison oak and rough terrain—with loud prayers! At last, I spied her way off on a low growing shrub—little yellow speck with orange cheeks. I hurried over to get her and she waited patiently for me to pick her up. I have a new cage with a good lock and take more precautions. I have decided not to trim her wings any more. It seems better for her, that she is allowed to “protect” herself at the cost of “us” losing each other. I have a Pet Pocket that is a front backpack with straps around me and sturdy wire mesh that she can look through on three sides but she cannot chew through. It has a perch inside. Susie crawls right down in it; I zip it up, and away we go.
Excellent article to reflect on in numerous ways. Thank you.
The more important mistakes we make are cultural and from ignorance. For instance: Birds just don’t respond positively to punishment. This is learned the hard way when a favorite pet goes ‘phobic’ from mishandling over things such as concern for safety over caring for the bonding between. Some species are remarkably sensitive to ‘toweling’ to retreive a frightened or mischievous pet when we are under scheduling or other pressures. I nominate the Poicephalus species!
We rescued a yellow-collared Macaw about 4 years ago. We DID not know what we were doing becausee he had never owned a bird before! So we have been learning as we go and really enjoy reading your blog and other related information. We feel that we are responsible owners but we are much to careless we will agree. The fact is that we take Bandito outside often just on our shoulders we well as do “free” transfer between his inside cage and outdoor cage. He often doesn’t want to go in his outdoor cage and we have to wait for him, or bribe him, to go into his cage. He has “escaped” 4 times, spending nights outside in neighboring trees. We always find him and he usually returns to us without incident. It is definitely NOT an enjoyable experience and rather frightening but can and often does end happily! Keep up the good work!
Our African Grey, Raymond, took off one day when we were having some playtime with her outside. We were completely taken off guard as she had never taken full flight before. We immediately started searching, and a neighbour two houses away called to say she heard a car alarm in the tree of the house opposite. Raymond was sitting in the tree, but there were a number of pigeons there as well. When we came closer, the other birds took off, and Raymond with them. She landed in a tall blue gum tree at the end of our road, but quite high up. We tried to coax her down but she was quite frightened and wouldn’t budge. Eventually we had the whole street in on the exercise. We put up an extension ladder and climbed up to fetch her. She came down, and we took her home. My heart was in my shoes during the whole experience, because her chances of survival are nil out there on her own. We have cats and dogs, which Raymond is accustomed to, but if she had landed somewhere else she would surely have been killed, or starved to death. We have learned such a valuable lesson and were so fortunate to have found her and brought her home so quickly (4 hours later). It doesn’t always happen. In a way I am glad that she had a taste of flying. Birds fly, this is what they do, and although she was frightened at first, I think she must also have experienced such a sense of exhilaration, and it made her more aware of herself. She was very proud of herself when she got back home, and made sure to let us know. We still have playtime outside but when she gives signs of wanting to take off we have to take her back in. We would love to be able to train her to fly – and come back…. There can be no blame for a bird flying off – they are birds and they fly – this is what they do. The problem comes in when we humans keep them in captivity, they don’t know how to look after themselves as they would in their natural environment. If anything, we can only blame ourselves. Long live the power of flight!!!
Dear Chet, Thank you for your video of “flight training” a pet bird. I trained my wonderful dusky conure, Jyoti, to fly to me in the house. It is so dignified and wonderful, and a great thing to show off. This past week he accidentally flew out the door and into the great blue yonder (I felt sooo stupid and my heart sank). I immediately heard him screaming like a banchee in a tree out back. I knew I had to lure him back before a hawk heard him. We whistled back and forth to each other like we do in the house. Jyoti is very bonded to my 18 year old son, Niko, who was much calmer about the whole thing than me (I was a mess, as you can imagine). My son coached him to fly to him and it all worked out quite sweetly. I thank you for your suggestion for flight training, as I think it creates an even closer bond when your bird is willing to fly back to you from anywhere. At the same time, I was lucky nothing scared him to fly farther and get lost. I feel like he is twice my bird now. He asked me to adopt him, and now he has returned to us from the outdoors. His is a happy and loved bird and enjoys us and his bird buddie, Monet, a yellow sided conure. Incidentally, Monet went catatonic when he heard Jyoti screaming outdoors, and it took him a while to forgive Jyoti for flying out. Monet kicked Jyoti a few times before letting him back to the preening and cuddling.
I had a cockatiel whom I let fly freely around the house, and although I took every precaution possible, I still worried about losing her. Thankfully I never did, but I came to realize the importance of training your parrot to come to you when called. Even if your parrot has clipped wings, I highly encourage every parrot owner to go through this training. I have heard several stories where parrots have escaped and actually returned to their owns because they took the time to train their parrot to come to them on command. Obviously, this won’t guarantee that your parrot will return, but it will least increase the change of you getting him back if he does manage to escape.
I haven’t had a bird escape and fly away, but I lost a dear budgie another, unexpected way. In the summer, I would hang my budgies cage outside to enjoy some sunshine and fresh breezes. I never dreamed a yellow jacket would fly in the cage, sting my beloved bird, Sprite, and leave him clinging to life. Horrified, I wrapped him up and while clutching him to my chest, ran into the house to phone the vet. I had two numbers on speedial: the vet and 911. I accidentally pushed the button for 911 and hung up quickly when I realized my mistake. I then dialed the vet and got some instructions for helping Sprite. Moments later the doorbell rang and an officer was at my door asking me if everything was ok. Come to find out, my mistaken speed dial to 911 did go through….oops. I apologized to the officer for the mistake, and he told me he hoped my bird would be ok. Moments after the officer left, Sprite convulsed in my hands and died. The bee sting was just too much for his little body. He was the sweetest bird and I felt like a murderer. How could I be so careless? It was a devastating loss. That was many years ago and I still miss my little guy.
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