Ollie

For those who don’t know, I have a green-cheeked conure (bird) named Olivia (Ollie for short). I have had her since a week after she was weaned, for three years now, and she is one of the greatest sources of joy in my life. She has as much personality as any dog or cat – she chirps to wake me up in the morning, sits on the curtain rod and sings while I shower, then steals bits of cereal out of my bowl. In the evenings, she sits on my shoulder from the minute I come home to the moment I put her in her cage, just before going to sleep. This Saturday, I almost lost her.

Because I live on the sixth floor of a high-rise, I keep her wings clipped a little longer than normal so she could flutter safely to the ground should she ever go over the railing. However, she so rarely flies that she is not comfortable doing so and as such, I don’t have a good way of judging how long to keep her wings. On Saturday, after getting home from rehearsal, I put her on my shoulder and we went across the street to buy milk (the owner of the convenience store insists I bring her whenever I visit). While crossing the street, something scared her and she flew all the way up to the electrical wires. She sat there looking at me – nodding her head in her “come get me” motion and I panicked. I jumped into the middle of the street, stopped traffic and begged her to come down. She kept nodding “come get me” and was obviously scared. It such a horrifying experience, watching my pet scared and intimidated and not being able to help her. Meanwhile, my screams had attracted a gentleman who asked what was wrong. When he followed my tear-streaked gaze to the wires above, he understood and asked “what can I do to help?”

“I need a broom, or something that can reach her – hurry, PLEASE!” I screamed and kept calling to her. He left to find something with which to reach her, but she was easily 25 feet above me and I knew no broom would help. I knew that I had to scare her off of the wire, so I waited until there were no cars and threw my wallet to scare her, hoping she would flutter down to me. She bolted and flew over the security fence of the building next door and into the courtyard below where I lost sight of her. I jumped the fence and ran after her screaming – I couldn’t see her, I had no idea where she had gone until I heard someone say “she’s right here!” I followed the voice and there was my Ollie, holding onto the inside of a house’s fence – shaking from fear. I instructed – actually screamed – at this poor person to “grab her, quickly!” They approached slowly and I screamed again “she won’t bite you – just grab her PLEASE!” They grabbed her and handed her to me and I ran back towards my building.

At this point, I got to the fence that I had jumped to enter the courtyard – it was 8ft high with steel points at the top. The gentleman who was helping me had come back with a broom and was on the other side. I asked him to hold Ollie while I climbed back over this fence. It took me about five minutes of scratching, sliding, falling and trying again to get over this fence that I had jumped without any effort moments earlier. Adrenaline is an amazing thing it turns out.

After I got over, I grabbed Ollie, thanked the man and ran back to my place. She was shaking and puffed up in her most intimidated stance. She sat on my shoulder and buried herself in my hair for the rest of the afternoon, but by the evening she was back to her old self, eating anything in sight and looking for things to destroy.

Sunday morning I clipped her wings then tested them by forcing her to fly inside the apartment. They are just right now – she can slow her rate of descent but not gain any altitude. This could have ended badly – I’m so glad it didn’t. It sounds so silly considering that I am talking about a 50 gram bird, but I couldn’t sleep on Saturday night – every time I closed my eyes, all I could see was Ollie sitting on a wire nodding “come get me” to her terrified owner standing helplessly 25 feet below.