All's well that ends well!
Long story short: the bird escaped yesterday evening. I honest to doG thought that was it and I'd lost the bird. CPG stayed up pretty much all night with me because I couldn't sleep thinking about her out there all alone and frightened. This morning plumber #2 arrived. We're outside, I hear the bird calling. It is a very distinctive sound and totally unlike any made by local wild birds. Plumber #2 tells me that there is no way he can unclog the drain in the tub and that all the pipes have to be replaced. I spot the bird in the tree in the backyard and pull Bubba around to have something to stand under where she is. I get her to come down to where she can step up on my hand and pop her in her carrier which is on Bubba's roof so I can climb down. She flies off before I can close the door on the carrier and I don't hear or see her again before I have to leave to walk dogs.
Can we say DISPAIR?
Last night CPG found a .wav of a bird like mine making a contact call and figured out a way for me to put it on my cell as a ring tone. Earlier I had been able to get her to call back to me when I played it. I get home from walking dogs and nada.
Dad calls and gives me Plumber #3's number. Plumber #3 tells me they can be here tomorrow after 12:00 and they think they can manage to unstop the drain and then worry about the condition of the pipes next week. YAY!
At 6:00 a.m. while I was out looking for the bird I distributed 50 full color fliers (handy that I had to buy that new printer last weekend, eh?) to every house on my block. Get off the phone with plumber #3 and the phone rings:
Me: Thank you for calling the best ps on the planet.
California Dude: Did you lose a bird?
Me: Yes!
CD: I just saw it, I'm at a house behind yours but I'm from California, I don't actually live here (heaven, forfend!) but I'm selling this house so I can go back to California and I heard this bird that sounds like the birds in that movie. And then I saw it and it looked...well, it looked like a parrot, man!
Me: That's the bird!
CD: She has a really loud voice, man!
Me: That's the bird, I'm on my way with a bowl of food to see if she'll come to me!
So, I arrive and the bird has now flown back over toward my house according to California Dude, his chic and some old lady who yelled at me for putting a flier in her mailbox (well, then you need to get one of those things that is under the box so people can leave fliers, biatch! - CD says, "if it's about the safety of your pet I can't imagine that anyone would care to which the old lady responds, shaking the flier at us before throwing it in her herbie, "it is a federal offense!") I explain that the bird is a variety of the same type of bird as CD is thinking of and bid them a happy life on the Left Coast...say hi to Brian and Scooterdeb while you're there!
I drive home and play the recorded contact call ring tone and the bird answers. I pinpoint the tree she is in and go in the neighbor two houses down's yard and actually see her about fifty feet up in a tree. I've got a big bowl of seed/millet/peanuts/almonds/grapes/apples and I hold it up and ask if she wants some dinner. She squeaks. I call her name and tell her she is a good bird and to come here please and generally sweet talk to her. Then I remember, this is a trained bird! I've done hundreds of recalls with her and so I hold my hand up and say, "bird, come!" And she drops out of the tree! She lands on a phone line about 25 feet down and sits there a minute. I call again, "bird, come." She waddles back and forth. I get tough and pretend like I'm going to walk away. She flies straight to my hand!
And, on my hand she stays while I walk back to my house whereupon I deposit her on her playgym with the ginormous bowl of goodies and periodically pick her up to cuddle her and tell her how scared I was that she was lost and that this morning while she was in the tree in the backyard I saw a hawk fly over it and she needs to learn about things like that before she ever flies outside again or, better yet she needs to never run fly away from home again!
Can we say DISPAIR?
Last night CPG found a .wav of a bird like mine making a contact call and figured out a way for me to put it on my cell as a ring tone. Earlier I had been able to get her to call back to me when I played it. I get home from walking dogs and nada.
Dad calls and gives me Plumber #3's number. Plumber #3 tells me they can be here tomorrow after 12:00 and they think they can manage to unstop the drain and then worry about the condition of the pipes next week. YAY!
At 6:00 a.m. while I was out looking for the bird I distributed 50 full color fliers (handy that I had to buy that new printer last weekend, eh?) to every house on my block. Get off the phone with plumber #3 and the phone rings:
Me: Thank you for calling the best ps on the planet.
California Dude: Did you lose a bird?
Me: Yes!
CD: I just saw it, I'm at a house behind yours but I'm from California, I don't actually live here (heaven, forfend!) but I'm selling this house so I can go back to California and I heard this bird that sounds like the birds in that movie. And then I saw it and it looked...well, it looked like a parrot, man!
Me: That's the bird!
CD: She has a really loud voice, man!
Me: That's the bird, I'm on my way with a bowl of food to see if she'll come to me!
So, I arrive and the bird has now flown back over toward my house according to California Dude, his chic and some old lady who yelled at me for putting a flier in her mailbox (well, then you need to get one of those things that is under the box so people can leave fliers, biatch! - CD says, "if it's about the safety of your pet I can't imagine that anyone would care to which the old lady responds, shaking the flier at us before throwing it in her herbie, "it is a federal offense!") I explain that the bird is a variety of the same type of bird as CD is thinking of and bid them a happy life on the Left Coast...say hi to Brian and Scooterdeb while you're there!
I drive home and play the recorded contact call ring tone and the bird answers. I pinpoint the tree she is in and go in the neighbor two houses down's yard and actually see her about fifty feet up in a tree. I've got a big bowl of seed/millet/peanuts/almonds/grapes/apples and I hold it up and ask if she wants some dinner. She squeaks. I call her name and tell her she is a good bird and to come here please and generally sweet talk to her. Then I remember, this is a trained bird! I've done hundreds of recalls with her and so I hold my hand up and say, "bird, come!" And she drops out of the tree! She lands on a phone line about 25 feet down and sits there a minute. I call again, "bird, come." She waddles back and forth. I get tough and pretend like I'm going to walk away. She flies straight to my hand!
And, on my hand she stays while I walk back to my house whereupon I deposit her on her playgym with the ginormous bowl of goodies and periodically pick her up to cuddle her and tell her how scared I was that she was lost and that this morning while she was in the tree in the backyard I saw a hawk fly over it and she needs to learn about things like that before she ever flies outside again or, better yet she needs to never run fly away from home again!
posted by barrie at 2:39 PM
1 Comments:
I'm glad she's home safe & sound. I have a cockatiel, Dobby, and would be terribly sad if he ever flew out of my house & I couldn't find him.
Post a Comment
<< Home