I WAS  LOST, BUT NOW I'M FOUND
LUKE15:24
One Sunday afternoon, on a day like any other, I began to cook dinner. Little did I know that my life was going to become a living nightmare in just a few minutes.
Dinner time is when Chopper, my Quaker and I spend a little one on one time together, but this day, when I went into
to get him off his perch, he wasn't there! At first I wasn't concerned, even
though the door was open and his wings weren't clipped, because Chopper had never flown before. I
started looking every where, calling "Chopper, Chopper"! You can't imagine my panic when he didn't
answer.
Long story short, he was no where to be found!
I could only speculate that he had climbed down and walked outside looking for me. Surly he's in the yard, I thought as I begancalling, no answer, nothing!
Frantically I began to search the neighborhood, no luck! I spent that night in prayer, tears and total
disbelief.
In the morning, I knew I had to face the truth,  my "Chopper" was gone!
It was time to start doing everything I could think of to get my bird back. I started with moving his cage to the
roof, where it could be seen through the trees. Next I put  posters up all over the neighborhood, including Circle K's, ATM's, Groceries Stores, Phone Booths, Parking lots, Bulletin boards, ATM's etc. Everywhere I could  think of! I made sure the words, LOST BIRD,REWARD and PHONE # were as large as possible, (not to be mistaken for  Lost Dog ). I
put an ad in the Republic. I walked the neighborhood  morning and evening, calling to my Bird. Every few days I
put up more signs and replaced ones that were missing. Each time I increased the perimeter around
my neighborhood.  Most important, above all else, I prayed! Day and night I prayed. I was ableto find strength and peace in knowing that God knew exactly where Chopper was, even though I didn't. Finally after 15 long and lonely days, I got the call I had been praying for! Chopper had been found! The caller had found him several days earlier. My Bird, who
would never let anyone hold him, except me, had flown right down to a stranger! A friend of  the
caller had seen a flyer. It was one I had just put up the day before at a Flea Mart Parking lot!
I hope that this story will encourage others. Don't give up! Keep on looking even when it
seems hopeless.
Remember, #1- Your bird will be looking for home as long as he's loose, so make it easy  for him to find you. PUT HIS CAGE OUTSIDE. Use any kind of sight or sound he might recognize.
#2- Your bird will eventually go to someone else, even if he never would before, so be sure you continue putting up flyers and continue running an ad every weekend ($10 for 4 days).Keep watching the Found ads in all newspapers, (have friends help) Keep replacing your posters and expanding the area you cover. Chopper was found over a mile away.
Please DON'T GIVE UP!
ARIZONA
">
">
">
">
HAPPY STORIES OF
THE LOST ARE FOUND
To Our 
Homepage
One of the happiest week-ends in my life!! by Jacques, FRANCE
                                                                                   Our beloved Sennie Enjoy is back again!! He spent 2 months and                                                                                     an half in the wild!! To remind: Enjoy is a wild-caught male
                                                                                   His age is unknown, but at least 5 years. When i bought him, I                                                                                        did not know much about breeders, and thought all these birds                                                                                        were caught in the wild (I was satisfied by the CITES nbr and the                                                                                     DNA ID nbr, that is to say!). I took the habit to go every week in                                                                                       the petshop where he was, and spoke to him very gently. He was                                                                                     such a pretty and lovable little guy! From weeks to weeks, he                                                                                          became less shy with me and accepted seeds from my hand                                                                                          (no, from my fingers!). When I was told that somebody was                                                                                             interested by him, I felt bad in my car getting back home. So, I                                                                                        bought him and a cage before getting back home (I had yet                                                                                             talked about him to my family. That's the way Enjoy came in our                                                                                      lifes. He became tame few months after his arrival here. As I                                                                                            knew that he lived a long time in the wild, I did not have the
                                                                                   courage to trim his wings, so he is fully flighted. Every evening,                                                                                        he is out of his cage on one of his perches. He likes to play, but not for a long time. He likes very much interaction with us, to be cuddled and to cuddle (from his perch). Six months after his arrival, I subscribed to the Senegal Digest's list. Reading your advices and the lives of your senagal helped me much to understand ours.
My wife was called exactly at the time I went to town (Marseilles) for business. The battery of my cell phone went exhausted, so she could not call me. But I planned also to visit some petshop I know, after my rendez-vous. In this petshop was an amazone, hand-fed, which I had contact and some tendreness with. The other members of the family knew her also, and, as we expected to have sometime a parrot at home, to live with Enjoy the Sennie, I bought her. On the way back home, I felt happy with this bird, talking gently to her in her transportation cage I just bought. But at the same time, so painful and heartbreaking for our Enjoy, buying this young amazon was like I just admitted I would never see Enjoy
again. And I still was so anxious for him...It was in this mood of mind that I arrived at home, smiling sadly to the Amazon.
I recomposed myself before knocking the door. My 14year daughter opened the door, looked to the bird, and said " So
pretty, but, and about Enjoy??" I replied "Enjoy, you know, it's so .." "But, no, you don't know,!!!... Enjoy, we know where he is, Mom got a call!!!!" You can guess the following. There was no scream of victory, too incredible, I mean, yes, credible, but so above what I expected or dreamt... No, I expected and I dreamt of such things, but, here, we were
in the reality, the harsh reality, and it worked like in a dream??? The amazon was set in the cage (Enjoy's!!!), the daughters stayed at home, and my wife and I went to the town where Enjoy had been caught. Nice people, and bird people. Enjoy had been in their garden for a couple of days. They gave him almonds that he ate. But, this friday morning,
there was a loud rain, and they were feared about cats, so they tried and succeeded in catching him in a net, as he was heavier beeing so wet. They settled him in a canary cage. They had no knowledge of my many messages
(>1000) to the neigborhood, as they lived too far away (15km). They went to a petshop to exchange him against 2 canaries and 2 finches. But, at the petshop, the owner refused, as it was obvious he was caught in the wild, having no breeder ring, and they did not have his CITES nbr nor his DNA ID. But, just as they got out, she remembered that 2 months and an
half earlier, they received a fax from somebody looking for a sennie that flew away... But, 2 1/2 months, it looked really long! Quite forgotten!  Then they called us, and I told you the following. You can imagine my first sight to my beloved Enjoy! He looked at me, his beak half open, and stayed like mesmerized. So mesmerized that when I tried to touch his beak, he bite me (he was right, too much is too much!!!) I do not know how we recognize him, because he was really
different from when he left: he is so feathered now that his cheeks looks round, and his eyes are surrounded with a small ball of feathers. When he flew away, it was the end of his moult. This Friday, he was covered of
bright new feathers. My wife gave him a raisin (his own delicacy) that he ate with little sounds... Then we went back home. There was 2 little lovebirds in his previous cage (just before he left, I ordered a new real parrot cage, as I saw in the your discussions on the list, because the bars of the cage he used were too thin, and as he twisted some of them, I was afraid that he could hurt himself with the solders in case one breaks away. No problem with the lovebirds), and a big 6-month baby amazon in the nice big cage... He had to share the cage with the amazon for the night until the next morning
when we got the big cage nbr3 for him alone No fighting with the amazon, that we named Zoéé, just distant mutual
respect, after some beak shows. We went to the vet, who found him healthy. Just a little hungry and
tired. He lost 5 grams, and his weight is 160gr. A blood cell culture was done. I got the results today, and he is told to be healthy. He slept many times on saturday and was really hungry. Today (Monday), he is as awake as we always knew him, and is no more hungry (I mean, he is regular hungry...)
I made argentic pictures of him that I shall send you as soon as they are
developped and scanned. I let down the site when he flew away. Too sad!.
But this sadness is over!
Many things changed in his behavior, and sounds. For example, he wastes
his food much less than before. Really much less! He likes other kinds of
food: he still likes sunflower seeds, but less than he was used before. He
is fond of apple, pears, seeds he disliked before, bread (even dry) etc
But the biggest changes are in his whistles: only tonight did he emit the
characteristic loud sennie call. But we heard many birds whistles,
finches, kingbirds, warblers, martlets, all kinds of birds that do exist
here in the wild. And most often, he imits the magpie's chatter. And
everytime he emits one of these whistles, he looks at us in the eyes.
Really like telling us something!
These sounds are really very accurate. I do not know some of them, but
this evening, I heard from a tree on the roadside a whistle that was
exactly one of these. Haven't seen the bird itself.
What happened to us was so sad that I did not have the courage to talk about our Enjoy flewn away to the few of you that I contacted for some reasons. But you, as you talked about a found sennie. So, feel free to post Enjoy's unreally real story that happened to us 3 days ago .And Enjoy sends a sennie whistle call and a kiss to Kiwi!

">
">
">
">
">
">
">
">
Back to Index
">
">
">
">