Back to Escaped!

I have stated before, an important reason to keep your bird’s wings clipped is to prevent escape. Occasionally, however, we sometimes neglect this practice. This is usually not a major problem for tame birds that always kept in doors, except if you leave windows and doors open. Most tame caiques will not fly if you take them outside but if they are frightened, the instinct to flee takes over. What do you do if this should happen?

Most adult caiques that are not given and opportunity to fly are poor fliers and you can usually just run after it and pick it up off the ground. Yet, some caiques, particularly young ones, are very good fliers. Most of what I relate here comes from Denise Cabral, who has some experience in pet bird recovery (1993) but I am adding an additional approach. The single most important thing to do if your bird takes flight is to immediately try to keep track of the location of the bird. If it lands on a high limb or perch, then, the bird’s favorite person should call to it first to calm it and then to try an coax it down. It is important that the favorite person stay as near as possible to the bird to reassure it and calm it. Then you have two tactics to follow. The one I recommend first is not one espoused by Cabral but is based on my experience with caiques and may not work for all parrots. I mentioned earlier that caiques usually have one thing they despise so much they attack it with abandon. While the bird’s favorite person keeps track of the bird, a second person should bring out the object that inspires this intense animosity. This will be different for each bird, so you must know what object to secure. Most of my birds hate the scissors, one hates mixing bowls, and another the bird ladder. A bit of care must be taken to avoid being caught between the bird and the object of it hate. So be sure to drop the object as soon as it starts flying toward you. If this fails, go to Cabral’s approach, prepare a picnic of the bird’s favorite table foods. Then, while continuing to call the bird by its name, eat some of the food making sure the bird is watching what you are doing. This approach may require greater persistence since the bird may be too frightened at first to come down on its own.

If you lose track of the bird, it becomes more difficult to recover it. There are a number of things you can do. First you should call the police and tell them the value of the bird. The second thing to do is call you local parrot club. You can walk or cruise the neighborhood in your car listening for your bird. This should be done shortly after sunrise. You can put up posters offering an award. (Never give the amount.) You can place an ad in your local newspaper. You can do a posting on the internet at the sites listed in the Emergency Links. Then you have to hope all your effort pays off.