Sports - Outdoors

Saturday, Nov. 07, 2009

Missing parrot causes heartache

Last week, George Kesler e-mailed, asking for my help in finding his daughter’s escaped parrot. Then Pat Kesler, George’s daughter and the fugitive’s owner, sent another e-mail along with a photo of Greycie, a beautiful Congo African Grey Parrot, last seen in the vicinity of Old Joe Moran Road in the Kiln. Greycie launched herself from Pat’s shoulder and “flew a straight line into the setting sun.” This was just days before a scheduled wing-clipping.

Parrot owners take heed.

Greycie is a chunky, medium-sized parrot—smaller than a Macaw and larger than a Cockatiel. She’s about a foot long.

At one and a half years old, she is just settling into her adult plumage. She is blue-gray, has a white mask around her eyes, and sports a bright red tail.

This tail will be conspicuous in flight, contrasting with her white under-tail feathers. Keep an eye on your feeders. Greycie would be a spectacular entry on your backyard list.

I certainly hope that we find her eating at somebody’s feeder. I know that I would hate to lose my own parrot, a bossy four-inch tall Pacific Parrotlet, named Qito.

I know that some readers are appalled to hear that I keep a caged bird, and sometimes I’m fairly queasy about it myself. I could justify owning Qito by pointing out that Pacific Parrotlets are still abundant in the dry scrub forests of Ecuador and Bolivia.

I could point out that Qito is captive-born and hand raised. He is a loving, if bossy, housemate that lives a rich and active life and is overseeing my every move as I write this column.

Qito has taught me a great deal about birds in general by being my bird in specific. But the bottom line is that I wanted a parrotlet the first time I saw one of these feisty miniatures.

And as long as people like Pat Kesler and me keep exotic birds from far off places, some of them will escape from time to time, and some will escape in such numbers that they establish breeding colonies.

The very thought of flocks of parrots descending on fruit crops sends agriculture officials into a tizzy. But that picture is already reality in some places such as the Lower Rio Grande Valley of Texas, Arizona, San Francisco and surely Florida.

Mississippi Coast resident, Susan Epps, has a particular interest in wild parrots. In fact, she has literally written the book on the wild parrots in Florida, Parrots of South Florida. In the book Susan documented more than thirty parrot species.

But Susan doesn’t have to travel to Miami or Arizona to find wild parrots. We have a healthy population of Monk Parakeets in Greater New Orleans. These and other parrots have been spotted in Mississippi. In fact, it is not that unusual for me to get an e-mail describing a new feeder bird that has a round head, big bill, and looks like a parrot. Well, if it looks like a parrot, chances are that it walks like a parrot and talks like a parrot, too.

See if it answers to the name of Greycie. I’m sure she’s ready to get back to bossing around her human by now.

If you see Greycie, e-mail me at blackwellrcomcast.net and I’ll pass it along to Pat. Let’s get this bird home safely.

Ronnie Blackwell, is a writer and bird watcher who lives in Hattiesburg. Ron’s storybook, ‘The Legend of Crow-Baby,’ and his other writings are at RonnieBlackwell.com. You can e-mail Ron at blackwellr@comcast.net