A Christmas Present

Eastern Male Rosella
Originally uploaded by bluemist57.

Today was quite the interesting day for the Toronto Bird Observatory. It started off with me at my "day job" as usual, where I read an article in the Toronto Star about an escaped Australian parrot in downtown Toronto. I immediately called Richard-well okay not immediately since I saw it at 6 am I waited till a little later :D

So we headed down there. When I first called the Church to obtain permission I talked to a very helpful member who told me a lady was already there trying to lure it into a cage. She was thankful when we showed up because she had been trying for awhile and was cold and tired. So we took over and tried to get the bird to come to us, along with one other lady (a soon to be member of TBO I think) it looked very close a few times, but being a typical parrot (contrary) NO LUCK. One of us snuck up on it with a butterfly type net and almost got it but then the parrot changed its mind and flew to a nearby tree.

So we unfurled one of our mist nets, recruited several passersby and six of us headed towards the parrot holding the net while two others herded the bird so it would fly straight into the net-which it did all according to plan! YAY SUCCESS!. Then we had to get him out of the net......that part was fun, both of us got some nice bites which immediately bruised and mine was bleeding too, but we got him out and my goodness all of us involved were so, so happy! A Global TV news crew also taped the rescue and I just saw it on the tv a little while ago I have no idea if they will replay it on the later news show but possibly. We have named the bird Christmas, appropriate don't you think?

Here is a later follow up article about Christmas the original no longer seems to be available online

Thank you Bluemist57 for letting me use your wonderful photo.


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