DEXIE’S GREAT ADVENTURE

By Gloria Mitchell

Last year on Thanksgiving Day my husband Peter and I had to beg off attending the large, planned family gathering at the last minute, as we both came down with an upper respiratory illness and did not want to pass it around. Since nothing was prepared for dinner I ran to the store and picked up a chicken and few other things to cook so we could have some sort of decent meal. I put the chicken in the oven but used the timer on the microwave to remind me to baste in an hour and went to rest on the couch as I was really starting to feel miserable and needed a nap.

As I dozed I kept thinking I was smelling bread baking instead of the chicken, which even in my half awake mode seemed odd to me. I came to with a start when my husband shouted “the kitchen is on fire!” I ran into the kitchen which was filled with black, suffocating smoke and found the microwave in flames. I had mistakenly set the microwave to cook instead of putting on the timer, and I had stored some dinner rolls inside which of course started to burn.

Our biggest and most immediate concern was our eclectus parrots, Zoe and Dexter. We tossed the microwave out the back door but the entire house was filled with smoke. I shut the birds in their room where their cages are, which happens to be an enclosed front porch that has an exterior door as well as french doors that open to the rest of the house. We ran around opening windows and doors to clear the air. I checked on the birds, who were not in their cages, and thought the room was a little smoky so I cracked the outside door. As I did this the change in pressure pushed open the french doors and Dexter, my male eclectus, flew into the main part of the house. I yelled to my husband that he was out but it was too late. Dexie flew right out the back door and I caught sight of him heading for open skies.

I stood in our backyard and literally screamed at the top of my lungs (all of the neighbors came running to see who had been murdered) and he heard me. He circled around and for a moment I thought he was coming back but he flew over my head behind me and I lost sight of him. Dexter is a skilled flyer but of course had never been in a situation where there were no walls to stop him and he panicked and had no idea what to do. I spent about an hour outside calling and calling his name (did I mention that I live on Lake Erie and that it was snowing?) when I heard him call back. After some investigating I heard him calling from high up in a group of pine trees in a neighbors yard about a block away.

We were pretty panicked because of the cold and called the local volunteer fire department. God Bless those firefighters who left their warm homes and families on a cold Thanksgiving to try to help us. They arrived with hook and ladder and tried to get up into the tree but it was now dark and the ladders did not reach all of the way and since we really did not know which tree he was actually in they regretfully left. I stayed in the yard for hours calling and hoping he would come down but after a while he stopped answering me. I went home and we put every light in the house on and I sat up most of the night in the bird room hoping he would see his cage and come home. He did not.

In the morning my husband and I were sure he was dead, either from some predator or from the cold. We got in the car and drove to the yard where he had been the night before and we heard him! He survived the night! With the neighbors permission Pete got on the roof of their garage and tried to entice Dexter down with mangoes. No luck. In desperation we starting calling tree services and found one who was willing to come out and give it a try. A huge bucket truck showed up and took my husband up 75 feet to the tops of the trees and Pete spotted Dexter. Dex would not step up, so Pete had to climb out of the bucket and I saw him at the top of the tree swaying in the air. It was pretty easy to imagine the situation going from bad to worse at that moment. Pete got Dex on his hand and was just about to get him inside his coat when something spooked him and he flew. A couple of crows nearby chased him and we lost track of where he went.

Devastation and disappointment do not adequately describe how we felt just then, after coming so close to getting him back. The two young men who worked for the tree service were so upset that they didn't want to take any money, but of course we would not let them go unpaid for their time and trouble. We spent the rest of the day (this is now the Friday after Thanksgiving) driving around the neighborhood with the sunroof open (yes, still snowing) and calling and listening for our boy. We had no luck in locating him though we stayed out past dark.

Saturday morning we had posters made and took them to every nearby business and also walked and drove for hours up and down the streets of our neighborhood and beyond, handing them out. I can't tell you how kind people were to us as they promised to keep an eye out for a small green bird with a candy corn beak who may show up at their bird feeders. We had read on the Internet that parrots do not tend to fly far from home if they do get out and we should continue to look, but we did not find Dexter that day.

Sunday was more of the same. Walking and driving for hours and incessantly calling for our bird. We had people all over the city looking for him but there were no sightings. We really felt he was probably dead by now but how can one stop looking? We were not able to give up yet.

Monday morning I did not have the heart to go back out and look anymore as the temperature had dropped even more and I knew he could not have survived, but Pete went and walked the neighborhood anyway. He called the local paper when he got back home to place an ad as a last ditch effort. When he explained that we had lost our bird 4 days earlier the girl exclaimed, “I just took an ad from someone who found a parrot over the weekend in your area!”. To make a long story a little less long, Dexter had come down on Saturday and landed on a woman’s mailbox. He was obviously desperate and she fed him some crackers but was afraid to pick him up. Some men came by and she asked them if they knew anything about birds. They did not but one of them had an ex-wife who at one time had a parrot.

They took Dexter, who by now was willing to go to anyone, to her home and she placed the ad. We drove out right away to pick him up and we were all happily reunited. To this day, one year later, I look outside at the sky and all of the trees and continue to marvel at the miracle of one small bird finding his way home in such a big world. Dexter was glad to come home, no worse for the wear, and he has been living happily with his grateful family ever since.