FREEDOM
We normally don’t name our babies at PeeWee’s, but
we had to make an exception this time for an exceptional bird – Freedom, a
Dusky Pionus we’re feeding. That particular evening after work not so very long
ago, the baby walked away from me, it’s sibling and the baby formula - all the way to the other side of the
table. This evening wasn’t any
different from the past few. The baby
started giving those looks while sort of slow bouncing up and down….those of
you who raise parrots know what I’m talking about – it’s that look that they
get right before the launch themselves into their maiden flight. PeeWee’s always encourages flying with all our baby
birds, and so I reassured The baby – go on…you can do it! Off she took! The typical maiden flight at our place is: take off, fly round and round our huge
livingroom and then thud…..a miscalculation about landing. Well, this evening – I heard no thud. I finished feeding the baby I had out and put him
up and walked into the living room, all the while praising the baby for a
good job. When I got in the living
room, I found one of the screens to the screen door off – and laying in the
living room floor….and of course, no baby.
We live out in the country, on the side of one of
the Ozark Mountains. Our house sits
on a flat spot – our front yard is steep downhill and cleared for quite a
ways…then, it’s pretty wooded. I went
outside and called and called, but no answer. My worse fear was that one of the hawks or eagles would get
her…or, if she landed on the ground, one of the big cats on the mountain or
other wild creatures would get her. I rounded up all the Duskies I had and put them all
in one cage out on the front porch hoping their calling would draw the baby
back in. For over an hour I watched
and waited. It was nearly dusk when
the baby got loose, so I’m guessing that she must have landed in a tree and
just perched. The next morning, I put the other Duskies right
next to the screen door so that if the baby was anywhere in the vicinity,
she’d hear them; my hope was to keep her close to the house. I prepared a statement about my lost bird doing
research on the internet about how to best describe this bird so that non-parrot
folks might recognize it. I faxed it
to our two local Vets hoping that if someone found my baby, that’s who they’d
call. I also called the neighbors and
let them know I had a baby on the loose.
I called our local radio station during their “Tradio” show and said I
had a lost parrot. The best
description I found about the size of this bird was that it was as big as a
large russet potato*, which you can imagine was a huge, hit with the Tradio
folks. I waited all day for a phone call from someone
saying they’d found my baby, but no such luck. I went home at noon to feed the other babies – still no
baby. As I drove up the drive after work, I caught a
glimpse of “red”…..I looked over, and there out in the open space in front of
our house, was the baby, dive-bombing my car, flying in big figure “8s”; I
turned my radio down and heard her calling.
She was as glad to see me as I was her!! I jumped out of the car and started talking to her as she flew
overhead. I assured her that she
could come down and land – I just knew she could! And she did….in a willow tree.
With much coaxing, she came down low enough that my husband was able
to climb the tree using a ladder and got her to step up and brought her
down! Yes, she immediately got her wings clipped! Usually, we let them really learn to fly,
but we figured those 24 hours out in the open – she’d learned enough! She didn’t look bad for being out in the wild – she
had skinned her head in a little place – but that was about it! Of course, she was very hungry!
And, THAT is why we named her Freedom! P.S. – to show you what an impact we’ve had on this
area, which we’re relatively new to…when you say bird – these folks think
chicken, lol, I called Tradio the other day, this is about 4 weeks after
Freedom’s escapade, to see if anyone had any Guinnies (for yard ticks). When I identified myself as Linda, the
host immediately asked – “Did you get your parrot back?” I relayed the story to him about how she
was waiting for me when I got home the next evening. He asked if she’d lost much weight…..not
seeing where he was going with this I, still very serious, told him no, she
was hungry though. So then he says,
“So, she was still ………….” he paused.
Then, I caught on - “Yes,” I told him. “She was still the size of a large russet
potato.” lol He said he had received
lots and lots of inquiries about that bird and whether or not I had found
her. |