A nightmare came true!!!!!!!!!!!!

[jennifer.gilson]

While my mother was here with us, she was taking Angel inside and a gust of wind took her out our front door. Angel has little flight experience so she didn't really know what to do. Thank the good lord we found her across the street in our neighbors yard. If she would have landed just on the other side of the fence where we found her she would have been eaten! Thank god she landed where she did! Then if that isn't enough, while she was flying in the safety of our screened in pool/porch area she went to the end (which is normally no big deal) when we went to retrieve her from where she landed (two tiles away from a door) we noticed that someone had left the door open! Again in our screened in area, she was flying and landed on the screen (that we found out the hard way the dogs broke) her feet got stuck(?) in the screen preventing her from getting outside. I swear that bird has 9 lives and has used 3 of them! GOD does do wonderful things! That bird's luck is proof!

 

[lene1949]

I had the same with Cory, my Corella... She often came outside with me, because I kept her wings clipped... A gust of wind took her, and I searched for a whole week... Finally got a phone call about a white parrot staying on the ground, even when people got close... That was my Cory... Since then I haven't clipped my birds... If they escape they have to be able to fly...

I was very lucky that Cory was still alive.

 

[shanlung]

Below is a letter I wrote in another forum just a few days ago which I think has its place in this thread, to minimise the nightmarish time.
That was for a birdie Echo who flew away, and with a happy ending of being rescued.


aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

The strange part is that the BULK of escaping birdies were birdies with clipped wings , not fully flighted birdies.
Even more strange is that more birdies are kept fully flighted now, at least from the polls I seen.
Surely, shouldn't it be the other way? That more birdies that are fully flighted be lost instead of birdies that are clipped forming the bulk of lost birdies?

It is not the scissors that prevent unwanted escapees.
More often than not, that lead to undeserved complacency.


Consider how my saga with Riamfada started.
She was clipped, and assymetrically clipped on just one wing. A clipping designed to cause imbalance to birdie and about the worse of clipping.
She flew away and landed in a garden with very high walls around it to be rescued by a lady. She looked and asked around the entire neighbourhood. She was a very determined lady walking about the neighbourhood to find whose grey it was.

So it was likely Riamfada flew into her garden from a much further place.

She then gave her to my care.

So not only Riam flew far away with clipped wings, but flew high enough to get over a high wall.

I guess as Riam was a wild caught, she retained enough of her flying knowledge to overcome those clipping done on her.

And as birdies have clipped wings, that would make it almost impossible for them to fly down.

Flying down is a lot lot lot more difficult than flying up. And as clipped birds probably had never been allowed to fly at all, they do not know how
to turn and fly in any controlled way by them. Flying up is about all they can do.

That is the reality.
Not what most folks love to think.

But strangely, folks who clipped birdies and never known of them flying seemed to know so much more about
flighted birdies than I do. And so fond of asking one and all to reach for those scissors to crunch off those feathers on the wings.
Their one infallible solution to any and all problems.


It is ok for folks.
But its the lost birdies that will pay the price.

What chance have they got? Never knowing how to fly with control? Barely enough feathers to fly and no feathers for flight control?
Clipped birds lost outdoors will in almost all likelihood escaped with a death warrant tied to their clipped wings.
Do remember that whenever you reached for that scissors.

If Echo was clipped, instead of having all her feathers, Echo would not have been back and likely to have died instead.

Flighted birds, and birds knowing flight, lost outdoors will survive a lot better than birds clipped.

It is the knowledge and care and attention to details that keep your birdie safe with you.
Nothing else.
Think about it.
Go and clip and hope you beat the odds.

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

and a follow up letter from me which hopefully can help those with escaped birdies.

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

Needless to say, I am so happy you got Echo back!

I will not, and never will, wish even the worse villian on Earth be him Hitler or Osama or my ex mother in law , that they lost a birdie, especially a grey.

The pain and anguish is so incredible and impossible to bear that it defied words and description.

Now that you got Echo back, can you ever recall the pain and depth of despair that you had when you first saw Echo winging off?
Its just not possible now. That pain was too great and utterly impossible for you to replicate in your heart now with Echo's return.

As for Echo on top of tree and not flying down to you, I believe that you missed what I wrote on getting a lost birdie back. If you had, you might have saved yourself quite a bit of pain and gotten Echo back earlier. It is too long and too detailed to copy and paste here.

You should read it, as you never know if you ever need it again. After all, Murphy is everywhere.

Search & recovery of your lost birdie
shanlung: Angkor Wat & stuff// Wife to say hi to Domdom and Riamfada// Search & recovery of your lost birdie
aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
​

Mike, the Daddie of Echo, agreed if he read that , and the 45 degree rule, he probably would have gotten Echo back a lot earlier instead of begging Echo directly under him on the branch.

But I do understand folks with a birdie up on a tree or building find it more gratifying to grovel and beg directly under the birdie to fly back, not realising that only a birdie
highly trained and experienced in flight can do a flight directly downwards.

 

[leomacaw]

Phew, just be careful from now on.

 

[suncon97]

When I read the first post I just started to get sick on my stomach. But phew, so glad you got Ida back.