PORT ANGELES – When Yellow Bird the parakeet flew the coop, E.J. Beckett was sure she was gone forever.
Yellow Bird, who doesn’t fly very well, flapped her wings and darted right out of her cage – which was being cleaned – and out the door of her home at Beckett’s Bike Shop, 124 W. First St. Suite B, on Aug. 16.
Beckett and her friends searched high and low, but nothing was found of Yellow Bird.
“I just knew we would never see her again,” Beckett said.
But Yellow Bird was fluttering around the area and found herself some help.
She flew, continually, into the window at the Fire Department station at 102 E. Fifth St.
Her “knocking” was heard and firefighters came to the rescue.
The little lost parakeet hopped from finger to finger in the fire station and even went to meetings with the crews.
“In one of the meetings she even flew and landed on top of the chief’s [Dan McKeen’s] head,” Capt. Jamie Mason said.
Eager to help find the bird’s home, department personnel made up posters and posted them in the neighborhood.
Rescuing birds and other animals isn’t usually at the top of the fire department’s list of duties, Mason said.
“As a rule we don’t normally rescue animals,” he said.
“But when they come to your door, you kind of have a duty.”
Patricia’s Pet Shop loaned them a cage and provided bird feed for their visitor.
A poster at Safeway was spotted by a Beckett’s Bike Shop employee the day after it was posted; the employee promptly went to the fire station and identified the lost bird.
“It was a miracle,” Beckett said.
“We have a blue bird, too, and they love each other.”
Now Yellow Bird has returned safely to her home on First Street with her cagemate Blue Bird and a new companion Third Bird – who is white.
“My husband felt so bad for Blue Bird who was missing Yellow Bird that he went out and bought another one,” Beckett said.
The whole ordeal lasted about 24 hours, and in the end Yellow Bird had flown about five blocks.
“She couldn’t fly too well, so you could tell she really wanted in,” Mason said.
