Sunday the 11th of December while working here at M.A.R.S., a knock brought me to the front door. A bird was found at the beach crossover in Indialantic and they were wondering if we could take it in. Since I assumed it was a sea bird I explained that we only do exotics, but there is a place that does near by. To my amazement the comment was made that this bird has a red tail.Â
Yes you guessed it an African Grey parrot, and a friendly one.
So they brought him here to Melbourne Avian Rescue Sanctuary. Now it just so happens that I was boarding my friend Lindas’Â Blue and gold Macaw, and she was due to pick her up at any time. Linda works closly with South Animal Care, and is an Aloha Animal Hospital associate. The wheels are as you see already in motion.
Our volunteer Shelly had mentioned, that are two really good sites for lost animals, Brevard Lost Animals, and Space coast lost animals. I pulled up the sites and looked at the posted pictures. Now here is where it gets interesting. The bird in the posting pictures did not look like the bird we had, and was using the opposite foot to eat all the treats.
To finish up this story Linda made the contacts, said we might have the lost bird here and Shelly followed suit with her contacts. The next day the owner who resides in Palm Bay came to M.A.R.S.and was happily reunited with her bird Matu.
If there is knowledge to be learned from this story one might think it’s to clip all birds wings. But, as most visitors to M.A.R.S. know we allow free flight to certain birds. What we learned, is there are great websites to use in Brevard Co. for lost pets, with an amazing network of people.
Thank-you to all who helped unite Matu with his owner Debbie.
Last, my next blog has to be about this. Is your bird left footed when taking treats, stepping up, or preforming other tasks or right footed? Or possibly ambidextrous?
Shelly says
I haven’t really paid attention to what feet they use to eat or step up, but you know, now that I think about it, I think Sophie favors one over the other…I’m definitely going to really start paying attention now!!!  :) I’m still chuckling to myself that Isabella actually steps up backwards. I think one of the lessons learned here would be having ways to identify your bird…after seeing the ads for lost birds, and only 1 had a band, so how can you give a number if there isn’t one, but I suppose a scary thing is that someone could remove that, so I love the idea of being able to say which foot your bird favors as well. I love how this pulled together with so many people wanting to help reunite this bird with his owner…Ma-Tu will have to come back to visit M.A.R.S. some time. Those of you who have visited M.A.R.S. or has parrots knows how wonderful it is that some of them know their own name…no doubt who they are. Lol.
Foxydoll10 says
God bless u mars a very happy story. Wish that all birds can reunite with their beloved owner.thanks for this great story.
Kathy & Errol says
Such a great story!  We just love our goffin cockatoo Whiskey that we were so blessed to find from M.A.R.S. – he sings and dances and is such a wonderful addition to our family.  He’s very affectionate, gives kisses and loves to be spoiled as much as we love spoiling him!   Kathy & Errol
LuAnn Apple says
Thank-you Cathy and Errol, just saw this comment. Visit soon if you can.