An exotic pet bird named Baby that flew away his "human family" during a camping trip at Bullfrog Lake in Palos Hills is back home safe.
Volunteers helped reunite the parrot, also known as a macaw, with his family, after he landed in Willow springs this week.
Annette Prince, Director of Chicago Bird Collision Monitors, told WBBM "We get hundreds of calls every week. Sometimes they're for people who have lost a bird, sometimes it's just for people who have spotted a bird. And a member of the public spotted this blue and gold macaw on top of the roof of their house."
Luckily, Baby still had a leash on his leg, and the person who found him said, "we've got this bird by a leash, what do I do now? (A) volunteer nearby was able to come over and get that bird contained so we could start looking for its owner."
They scanned through social media and found Baby's owners who had been looking for the large, colorful bird.
"It was very fortunate," Prince said. "A lot of times lost birds can travel distances and never be willing to come down out of a tree until they're in a lot of trouble."
Prince said Baby was not really able to help in his capture, saying, "a lot of people try to teach their birds at least their name if they were to get lost they can at least say their name, it would be challenging to teach them to say an address or a phone number."
Chicago Bird Collision Monitors said the parrot would likely not have fared well if it had been out in the wild much longer, because it might have become prey for other birds, or succumbed to cold weather.
So in the end, Prince said, it was a wild flight with a safe landing. "(we're) always excited to have a happy ending."