IndianRingNeck.com

Hi guys,

Our beloved IRN, Pesto, flew off my shoulder when I accidentally stepped outside on the 22nd of December, over two weeks ago. We had a call this morning about a green ringneck found in our area, which actually ended up being looked after by a guy in our street!

We've brought him home, and he looks very similar (even his tailfeather seems to match the tailfeathers he's lost over the 3 years we've had him), but he is acting like a strange bird. Hasn't reacted with any familiarity to our talking to him, offering him treats etc.

That could be because he's scared, of course, but it seems strange that he wouldn't want our protection, as he always came to me in particular when worried or scared. I seem to be scaring him with my presence at the moment! Of course, I was the one who had to catch him, so that wasn't a pleasant experience for either of us...

Our Pesto is an extremely tame bird, who would sit on us all day if we let him, chatting away, making clucking noises etc. He would let us touch him on any part of his body (growling if it was the claws), so we had an enormous amount of trust built up.

We're very confused, so if anyone who has any experience with losing and then finding a pet bird, we would love to hear about it.

Thank you.

Watto & family

Also, is there a way to confirm the age of an IRN? We know for sure that Pesto is just over 3 years old, so if there was a way of telling the age of this bird, that would help immensely.

Cheers!

Watto

Best luck to you at this confusing time!
-MissK

Thanks for your reply! We ended up being sure he wasn't ours, so we're back to searching for our poor lost bird

Have you posted on parrotalert.com?

Also, where are you?

Ellie.

Yep, parrotalert, RSPCA, Gumtree...

We're in Tingalpa, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. It's amazing how many of these are found, but we've had no luck at all so far

We used to clip Pesto's wing, but stopped because we liked him being able to decide when he wanted to come for a visit, rather than squawking for company. That made for a very happy family, but unfortunately it also meant that when he flew away, he was rather good at flying

I'm so sorry Watto. I remembered seeing a found IRN on facebook at the beginning of January... just checked it, unfortunately it was a lutino.

I hope wherever he is, he's okay.

Ellie.

Just got off the phone chasing another dead end *sigh*

Thanks for your understanding - it's hit us all much harder than we would have guessed possible. He really is a member of our family, and it feels wrong without him here.