[Amie]

We lost Scarlett last night.

We had a minor blow up at work yesterday, and of course, it affected my department. And, to double the pain, I was the only one in my department who came in yesterday. So I got to work an extra 2 hours.

Brian gets home at 3:30, though, so he was home with the babies. And cooking dinner. And he forgot that the sun has started to set much earlier than usual. Scarlett was spending the evening in her aviary like she always does, and he let it get too dark. When he brought her in, the cat ran out and tripped him, and Scarlett took off into the dark.

Now, Scarlett has never flown until the last year. We've been working at it for a long time, and she's finally getting a handle on the flying and landing thing. But she can't take off from the ground yet, and she still isn't comfortable flying. Brian didn't have her cradled under his arm like he should have for the three steps from the aviary to the back door, and we paid the price for it.

We searched until 11:00 pm, knowing the entire time that she wasn't going to say a word in the dark. But I know how little a chance a domestic parrot (especially one who doesn't fly well) has in the wild at night, so I wouldn't stop. Brian made me come in at 11:00 to eat, and I tried to get some sleep, setting my alarm for 10 minutes before sunrise to renew my search. I couldn't sleep, so I spent the night creating fliers to put around the neighborhood.

Brian leaves before the sunrise, but he went back out and tried to call to her again. He was so upset that he got no response.

I started walking up and down the overgrown (and quite flooded from Ike and Gustav) fields behind our house as soon as it was light. As soon as the morning birds began to sing, I started calling to her. Once the sun rose completely over the horizon, I heard the most amazing sound.

The most beautiful Eclectus flock call I've ever heard in my entire life.

I started crying and calling back to her and trying to get her to say something that wouldn't quite echo as much in the open so I could get a sense of where she was. As soon as she saw me running (or heard enough to identify it was me) she started screaming "UP UP MAMA!!!!!!" as loud as she could. She was about 300 yards behind our neighbor's house, on the one branch strong enough to hold her in knee-deep water. Thankfully, since the fields are flooded, the predators are flooded out.

I got her out of the water, brought her out of the brush, and as soon as she saw home, she took off and flew to her aviary. Made a beautiful landing.

She's home, in her cage, eating a very special beans, egg, and seed mix for her troubles.

Even though we've had our scare, and was it ever an awful one, we will not begin clipping her. Brian will be more vigilant, believe me as upset as he was I doubt he'll ever let that happen again. I doubt he'll ever tell me again that she doesn't need the harness since she can't fly well.

Because the moral of the story is always, not being able to fly well does not in any way mean that they can't fly at all.