We Woke Up And Two Birds Had Escaped

Our cockatiel flew out the door a few weeks ago. We posted his escape on our local e news feed and Craigs List. We actually found him in a tree but he was too spooked to fly down to us. One week later we were notified that a cockatiel had been turned into the County Animal Service. We picked up our MAX and just couldn’t believe our good fortune. He had an infection, was thin, but home with us. After 2 weeks of isolation from the flock, he was back with his birdie buddies. It did take another week before he started taking again, but he is back to normal now and even with a “crew cut” he can still fly. Maybe he needs flight training….

SWe just lost a our baby camelot macaw day before yesterday. This is a 5 month old baby. So we are doubtful we will find him but fingers crossed!

I had no idea about flight training. I’m going to look into it. I had “Goober” my camo macaw take off. A lift, a dozen people, countless phone calls, tears, and prayers, about 15 hours later we got him. I am so glad I watch your clips….thanks

So glad to hear about happy endings! No one understands your message more than a another person who also has a Blue Throated Macaw AND expeienced an accidentaly escape. Your free flight training has given us more security than we thought possible before. And as for Blue Throats????…. well, lets just say, “mechanical genius” is not a strong enough term to describe them! Thank you Dave and Jamie for a lesson well learned, for providing us with a safe option should an accident occur (and they often do, ask ANY parrot owner), and for your friendship which we will always cherish.
Love ya’
Vic, Connie, and Tika

very smart parrots why don’t you use a combination lock instead?

how cute ,those birds are so prety and inteligent.what is that place id love to come see them i live in new york too,is it like a circus there?

what a great video! any other birds would have been lond gone! thanks for sharing it with us!

My yellow collar mini macaw escaped one summer for a few days. While he would have have escaped in the first place were he not flighted, I truly believe that once out there he could out-fly hawks and other predators. Granted, he was a particularly gifted flier unlike my other turkeys ;-p

“mourning” or morning. One is about grieving loss, i.e., death.

terrific story about the virtues of free flight and the difficulties with keeping extremely smart birds . . . ;-} thank you

Free Flight……will teach it now. We are in Australia and our 40year old Sulphur Crested cockatoo Stompy. Got out and was missing for 3 weeks and was found in a 100ft Gum tree, starving. Had to get the fire department with a big ladder to rescue him. If he had free flight training it would have been different. Stompy passed away 3 years ago. I will teach this to my ringneck and conure. Thanks again. Glad your babies were safe.

So pleased you got your birds back safely!
I’d like to know if the chains and locks are non-toxic??
because I see your parrot having a good lick at them…
I lost a Galah to lead poisoning doing exactly that.

I have a blue & gold that got scared and broke out a screen and away she went..ik live on 30 acres in appomattox va. We located her by putting the other bird in the window and having him scream 4 her…she finally made her way back after 3 nights out and flew into a tree just out of my reach..luckily she climbed down to my hand and is living happily ever after!

That happened to me. i have 2 lorikeets and when they were a bit younger i did a bit of flight training with them. and they also respond to me whistling..i live on 5 acres and they have gotten out twice flew right down the back of my property into the tallest tree. i walked around whistling untill i found them and got them back every time

Great video! Thanks for sharing

I have a wonderful Cockatiel who has escaped twice. First time he would up in a tree a few houses down. We got him down from the big tree with a cherry picker.The second time he was gone for two full nights. Thankfully, he always had the run of the house and had good strong wings.

I ran an ad in our little shoppers paper and placed his name in the ad. Three blocks away he was spotted by someone who had read the ad and remembered his name. He was down on the lawn with all the other birds pecking away. He’s such a sociable little guy.

Mike, the guy who found him, told me he was checking on his in-laws house and noticed a bird that looked very different from the others. Fortunately, he remembered the ad and Mr. tweets name and called to him. He said Mr. Tweets waddled over to him like a little man and hopped up on his shoulder. He got in the truck with Mr. Tweets on his shoulder, took him home and called me.

Somehow I knew he was ok and when I got the call from the guy, I was over the moon. Talk about a miracle! I don’t think he would have survived two nights outdoors if he didn’t have good, strong wings and could fly well. How he avoided the neighborhood hawk I don’t know but he did. I agree that flight training is essential if they are to survive an experience like that.

We had our McCaw “escape” the July 4th weekend of this year (2010) it was the worst feeling. She is our baby. We were able to locate her with help from alot of folks in the Annapolis, MD area (she took off from our sailboat on the Cheasapeake) and alot of posted photos of her in all the area restaraunts/shoops. A local fisherwoman located her and gave us a call.
After a night of no sleep, we went home and brought her favorite cage out in a nearby yard and was able to talk her down. It was very interesting to watch her study each limb/branch and try to figure out how to climb down from a unfamilar tree. In retrospect, we realized she didn’t know how to land. She flew in the house from manzeta tree to perch to cages etc. Never had to “fly” downward which in the case of her flying away, once we located her she tried to fly down to us but just didn’t know how….this story has a happy ending, but my husband and I are really interested in Chet’s way of training a parrot with free flight. It was odd that there was no loud noise or anything to startle her. She just spread her wings and probably was thinking (oh Sh*t) now what do I do? Didn’t know how to turn or anything. Food for thought. Lisa

Wow I am so glad everybody is OK! What an intelligent bird! My goodness I would never be able to pick the lock! Can you train cockatiels free flight? Thank you. Have a great day! My cockatiels are 6 and a half and 13 years old.

Barb, Baby and Beenie ))

By the way I just adore all of your parrots!!!! And they are amazingly smart! Way smarter than humans ever dreamed of.

Barb, Baby and Beenie ))

I know Blue Throats are smart, But african greys would have those combonation locks done in no time flat! I have two CAGS. and they can escape any cage. I have pad locks with the key lock on them. on every door opening and on all food doors. One I have to wrap the chains around like you showed in the video. Use a pad lock with a key, they love the combonations locks and go thru them like nothing. they work till they get out. People just don’t realize how smart these birds are! Not untill you have them. I have 4 total and love them all like my children. And they love us like they are our kids. They call us mom and dad. And call the dogs to walk when you don’t want to take them for a walk. and then you end up having to… Yep, just like kids. But you have to love them!

I am happy to hear no one was lost… Hey we never got to see the Lions!

We had our Senegal parrot fly off one day. We had his wing clipped used to bring him outside when we sat out there and would put him in the tree. Well, his wings were getting a little too long and he took off! He flew across the street and to the other side of the lake and up a tree! My husband followed him over there. They had a special call that they would talk back and forth to each other. When my husband got to the tree, he came right down to his hand and he managed to get him back home!

Low and behold nature takes care of itself.

As I watched your video about the lost birds and their return home. I also noted the padlocks and chains. Are they the kind of metal the birds should be chewing on due to lead poisoning. It is very frightened to lose a bird. Glad to hear the returned home.

OK, I get the freeflight training kick, but I’ve a question about your security: Why don’t you use a keyed lock instead? A parrot can’t fit its beak in the keyhole to open it. Have you also considered something that requires more strength to open from farther away than your bird can reach? What about putting a metal on the door around the padlock so Jinx can’t even reach it?

Also, just because Jinx may be mechanically inclined, it’s pretty unlikely that he was able to try enough combinations to unlock the lock. I think there were some other factors contributing to the ease of his escape.

it was very good the ending on the two babys

I too wonder about the the issue of zinc in the chains and lock metals. We lost our Cockatoo recently due to zinc poisoning. It was attributed to chains and locks similar to yours.

Hi Guys,

I had a similar experience 2 days ago when one of my trainers dropped a cage containing a sun conure. Thank goodness it was trained in recall and flew back to me. A must have behaviour for any pet/working bird.

I was having my morning coffee when my birds all started squawking. I have 7 sun conures and they do like to talk to the kids on their way to school. Then I noticed three birds in the middle cage. I shot up and ran out, Aloha had moved the trays and opened the feed door. Hula and Leia were still inside. Aloha was hanging on the outside of the middle cage. As I reached for him, he flew out into the jungle. I freaked! I was yelling to my Mom “Aloha! Aloha is Gone!” That’s when he flew back and made a perfect landing on my shoulder.
Aloha,
Kim

They can’t use that kind of lock because the birds toes or beak fit in there and can get stuck or broken. Lovly story never lost any of our birds though.

I actually have a homemade tree made from a very large apple tree branch cleaned up which is safe for chewing for my little guy in the house. Its his new favorite toy area and he comes down from the tree when i come to him (i had an experience with the escape to the tree),would love to see him learn to fly on command

My cockatiel is missing right now, for the last 3 days we knew where she was and she was trying to climb down the trees she flew to; but she was to scared. Now I can’t find her.

My 2 year old Alexandrine got a fright from some children and flew out the closest window. Unfortunately I had never trained him to fly back to me so in the adrenaline of things he kept going. The last I saw of him was with a crow chasing him. 6 days later the animal shelter called us and he had been located half an hours drive from where we lived. Vet was amazed at what good state he was in and I learnt a valuable lesson about the benefit of full flight training.

So glad you got them back safe. My African grey was outside earlier this week enjoying the good weather in his cage. I was in the kitchen working and I happened to look out and saw him walking about on the roof of his cage. He adores chocolate and always recognises the wrapper so I grabbed a chocolate bar and walked very gently up to him with the chocolate and he stepped on to my hand. What a relief. He hasn’t done any free flight training but perhaps we should start.

What a busy early morning you had!! Glad your birds are safe.

Great video. Hope it helps and inspires a lot of people. I am very glad you did not lose a bird; it could have very easily happened. I once had a bird that I loved dearly fly away more than 1/4 mile from my house and into some dense woods. I thought I’d never find him. But 9 hours later, at dusk, he began his nightly calls and that made finding him easier. He was 40 feet up in a small sapling. He would not come to me. But with the help of a friend, we actually bent the tree over until the limb he was on reached low enough to the ground that I could reach it. (I’m just glad my friend didn’t let go of that bent over tree. It would have launched my bird into the next county if he had.) Needless to say, I got my bird back, luckily, and I am so happy that you got your birds back too. God bless you for all you do for your birds and us bird lovers.

wow! my parrot we were takin it out and when of a sudden our parrot flew to the light and starting screaming them my uncle tried getting it down but i got a bit annoyed and then charged at my uncle and started biting his cloths my uncle was trying to get it off then it flew and flew aaround our light three times and now when my uncle wistles and and then sayd his name he comes on to his finger when he comes onto the finger he cant really bity my uncles hand because its flat thats when he cant pull your skin or anything and then he dosent bite but he makes a lot of squicking send me an email of what else my parrot does badboi@hotmail.co.uk

Thanks to know , am glad you find them

Have put combination locks on our inside cage and HAVE had the Macaw “pick” them! He even was able to change the combination of one of them and I had a devil of a time figuring out the new combo. Never underestimate your bird especially if he wants your attention.

OMG! Loosing birds like that is a nightmare come to life. I’d LOVE to be able to post this video to my own website and let friends on my personal use only Facebook account know of this. Being an affiliate, I’d like to include your text too… using my affiliate number… ONLY IF YOU ALLOW ME to.

Thanks! Great news you got both of your “babies” back. Pheeeeeew!

Years ago, my Indian Ringneck, Romeo, flew off my shoulder into a huge tree and I could not get him down. He disappeared for almost two weeks. I got a phone call one evening asking if I was missing a bird. A family was golfing on a local golf course here in Naples, FL and Romeo walked up to them. The son happened to remember me walking my son to the bus with Romeo and he said…That looks like Mrs. Robinson’s bird. Romeo came home safe and sound – pretty incredible since we have Ringnecks that fly wild in Naples.

My cherry top conure flew out of the house when the door was left open a fraction too long. He steadily refused to come down for me or either of my daughters. He flew too far away for us to hear him (or else got quiet as dusk approached). We were heartbroken. That night we had the worst thunderstorm of the year. I did not hold much hope for George. I walked the woods calling him the next morning before work, but didn’t hear a peep from him. However, thank God, around 11 a.m., my son said he heard him squawking up a storm in the Forsythia bush and came as soon as he called him…I’m not sure he wants to ever fly away again – had to be very traumatic for him. Thanks for the video and the e-mails!!

Hi, chet!

At least your Brother got his birds back. Free Flight is important I agree, espically so they do not feel like they are always in their cage. Unfornutely, I lost my little Budgie HOPE, I only had her for 5 months from Pet Land, my Dad had bought her for me. I live in Medicine Hat, and I was cleaning her cage that morning, and forgot the front door was open to my house, sadly she got out. I searched and searched but no luck. She apparently found a tree and it had moss on the tree, she layed down tired and it had been hot that week and windy that day. She covered her self-up and went to sleep and is now with God. I did not find her but thanx to a physic friend I know, this is what I learned. She is in bird Heaven, they call it. Your Brother was lucky, we all miss HOPE, Chet. I have not gotten another bird yet. We will see, I felt reponsible for what happened, but I know she enjoyed her free flight at the time and she is now free with God. Amen.

waw,,a good time in this morning…
hiiiii…

My Green Winged Macaw, Sinbad, took himself for an adventure a few years ago. He was too confused to find his way home, so he grounded himself and some children called the local animal rescue.
He now flatly refuses to leave the house and takes his frustration out on the dogs. Watching a macaw and a great dane argue is very entertaining!

The odds of a parrot being able to open a combination lock are astronomical.
A more likely scenario is that the lock hasp was not fully engaged.
Adding additional locks is a good idea,adding an additional layer of safety in redundancy

Pepper my Female African Grey got out on a Sunday, in July about 15 minutes before dark. After 18-20 yrs waiting to be able to get a large parrot I was devastated but too panicked to show it. We called and called that night to no avail and the next day after a sleepless night I was up at the crack and scouring the hood. After 18-20 yrs I had at least a lot of book knowledge about them and knew she wouldn’t be far if she survived the night. I live in Oregon, lots of predatory birds..I found her on Monday but she flew off after waiting for ME to come to her. Then on Tuesday morning found her again, she flew off, at 7pm I located her and after about 2 hours she flew, made a huge circle and landed at my feet. Since then we have been working on Free Flight Training with the clicker on my own. Knowing exactly what to do would be a huge benefit. The good news is that as a result of losing Pepper and then finding her I met a local woman that clips wings and such…I’m not a fan of clipping wings myself but duh…that was on Saturday, By Sunday evening I gained two Soloman Island Ecclectus’ one male one female free because Patty understood I have a passion…Anyone who can recapture a bird, untrained bird has to have something going for him, LOL…thank Goodness for the Womachs!!!!!

For the life of me, I can’t figure out how so many people have had their birds get outside! I have had my blue & gold macaw for 30 years, and he has NEVER had the chance to get to the outdoors without being tethered to my hand. We have never clipped his wings and I have him fly across the house sometimes just for fun, but he’d much rather walk. He learned very quickly how to pick those combination locks, so we use a spring-loaded clip on the cage door that is at an angle he can’t get his beak around. My bird is never outside his cage unless the doors and windows are closed, and they all have screens on them anyway, so even if he was out, it would take a while for him to get through one. Why would a bird owner make it possible for their bird to get out?? It just seems very irresponsible to me…

Sorry can not download video but read through the comments for a idea.
My cockateil Snowy flew away into the clouds and out of sight one day. I search in all the surrounding streets whistling his favorite song and asking people had they seen a cocketeil. One hour late after searching i asked a guy had he seen a cockateil, he said there was one whistling doe a deer on his house roof. Yes i had found him and climed up a latter to get him. So glad i had learnt
him some tunes. He use to fly back to me on demand, but that day the wind was so strong it took him way into the clouds and out of sight.
My Parrot Eco is in hospital with metal poisoning after spending a few days in our new avirary. I do not know what to do with the avirary now, what material can be used to make a safe avirary?

My blue/gold macaw, 10 years old, got spooked going from outdoors to indoors and flew away. I would post on Craig’slist every so many days and put up alot of fliers looking for her. I didn’t think I would ever see again. Eventually I got calls locating her but getting her to come down was the hardest part. She didn’t know how to land downward. Finally after 6 weeks and 35 miles away she finally met a family she felt comfortable enough to climb down and get the apple he was offering. She probably got enough of eating berries! Anyway…she is safely home again and I promise to never let her out of my sight again!

my african grey has escaped today and I can’t find him please help very sad!what should I do. thanks darlene

I adopted from a foundation. One catalina macaw and one sulphur crested cockatoo. After going through the on line classes, and having our three African Grey’s Vet. checked for their health, and a home visit we brought the birds home. The birds hate my husband. They love me and will come to me. We think the reason is because the birds were taken care of and handled by women. Is there any way to teach them to bond also with my husband. We origionally got the birds for him!!!!! The macaw is a feather plucker also. Please help with any suggestions or am I going to be the only one they will trust?

HOW DO YOU TRAIN THEM FOR FREE FLIGHT

My Parakeet opened his door and escaped from his cage. I found him when I came home from school I was terrified.

ThatWas great. Thk god they r ok

Thank God my cockatiel is safe home again, some people found her 35 miles away from where we last saw her. She is recovering right now, 7 days passed out there one more and I don’t think she will be here. I don’t know what free flight is but in glad the only thing she used to do around the house was fly. The cold weather here in Wisconsin is horrible and she survived thanks to God, our prayers, people who look for her, and specially those people who found her and returned her home.

Glad to hear the birds are safe. Those locks look like good toy’s for in the cage to keep their minds busy. And put something with a key on the outside.
Thanks for the video that has to be the most scary thought

Our Senegal got out last fall, just as it was starting to get colder. He flew across the street, turned right after our neighbor’s house, and was gone. After five hours of searching and handing out flyers on the right side of our our immediate neighborhood (an area of about three square blocks), that same neighbor called me and asked if Felix wolf-whistled. We found him on her next-door-neighbor’s fence. It wouldn’t surprise me if he had been there the whole time, but was too scared to make any noise. Lesson learned: don’t just look up if you parrot gets out! I keep meaning to do flight training with him, and I will make the time for it.

Also, for anyone who thinks that simply clipping parrots’ wings will prevent this type of loss, it’s not true. Even with a wing clip, parrots can still fly, and if scared, the adrenelin rush will give them enough extra energy to fly up into a tree. Once the rush is gone, they may be more reluctant to fly back down because of the wing trim; they know they have less control over their flight.

The week of the 23rd of August 2010 I was taking a week of vacation to move into a house. It was raining one morning and my 4 yr old Ruby MacCaw was acting like he would love to get out in it and take his bath. Well, my boyfriend started out the door, bird on arm and before I could say I don’t think thats a very good id…he was gone.
We started going up and down the streets, walking, driving and yelling Bootie Bear (you know you never really think of the names we give our pets until you start yelling them out in public) in the pooring rain, but no Bootie. Met most of the neighbors though and then finially a maintenance guy for one of my neighbors heard an unusual bird sound looked up, and there he was, ohhh only about 4 doors down, but way way up. My good neighbors called 911, so out came animal control, an ambulance and two fire trucks. After an hour or so of diiberation they decided they would not be able to get him out of this tree (they did not have a ladder truck) they made a call for a ladder truck. Well, that did not go so well for bootie either, a loud huge metal arm coming up at him with four vehicles running and this enormous long net swishing down upon him, so he decided to find another tree actually a much taller tree, pecan, his favorite, great. So now we get on the phone and start making calls and everyone did say that if you would put his cage and all of his familiar things out was probably the best chance, so we did, in my NEW neighbors back yard, by the way bootie could not have picked a prettier back yard. But after 40 ft ladders, crying, singing, talking, begging and pleading he figured out he did not know how to get out of the tree. After after camping out two nights (well one full and one 1/2, it started raining again and who would have thunk it that sleeping bags are not water proof). But after a glorious 48 hours of talking to my neighbors back yard he decided food was more important and turned upside down and took the plunge…right into another tree….but this was much lower, so we were able to talk him down. We had some great people with wonderful thoughts for us and we did appreciate our new neighbors( not sure they appreciated us too much) and all of the Fireman that did their best to free Bootie. They were all great!.
Bootie is back at home and has adjusted back to the spoiled life again. All is well!

My name is Renee and I live in Cape Town, South africa. My 15 month old talking and incredibly tame and most beautiful Hahns Macaw called Izzy flew away (due to my negligence of not cutting his wings) on Monday 16th January. It has been 3 days already and I am heartbroken, unable to sleep or eat and just about to give up hope. I have done almost everthing humanly possible to let everyone in the city know but I am almost out of hope. Pray for Izzy’s safe return. an animal Communicator overseas who I contacted and sent Izzy’s picture to said that she sensed that he was dead – so my life has been turned upside down and I am struggling to copeas I dont know what to think. I am just so worried about him living in the comfort of my home and then having to survive in my area with no survival skills. Pray for him please. I want to die right now