Apollo's First Mission

We have 20 foot ceilings in our family room. Normally that little trivia fact is quite unimportant... unless you are a parrot.

When we picked up our new conure from the breeder she had clipped Apollo's wings. This was crucial so that we could keep our little birdie safe while we had him out of his cage to play with him. He enjoys sitting on our shoulders or the tops of our heads.

Saturday, Shawn and BirdMan took off for the fishing pond down the street while RocketMan and GooseyGirl stayed with me to finish their dinner. Once they were done, we got Apollo out of his cage to give him some scritches.

He promptly took off flying into the family room, bounced off the plate glass window and ricocheted into the large grapevine wreath hanging at the top of the room.

That was when I realized the breeder hadn't cut all the flight feathers.

Apollo was quite impressed with his new freedom. Here he was at the top of this great new perch with lots of fun things to chew and climb on, while his humans put on a great show, down below jumping and shouting and calling his name.

GooseyGirl, my drama queen, started crying, "Mommy, how are we going get him? I love him and I don't want to loose him! Will he ever come back? Oh, what are we going to do?"

I turned to RocketMan and said, "Go to the pond and tell Daddy that we need him to come home and get the big ladder so we can rescue Apollo. Tell him to hurry!" RocketMan quickly headed to fetch Dad.

I attempted to entice Apollo down by holding up every yummy birdie treat we could find. Apollo wasn't impressed. He really liked breaking off all the little grapevine bits from the wreath and happily watched them float to the ground.

How in the world was I going to get this bird down before he ingested the fake little plastic berries on that wreath or took off again trying to bust through the plate glass window to the freedom beyond?

Well, I shot him down with a bazooka. To be more precise, an air bazooka.

Now, before you go reporting me to the ASPA, know that an air bazooka is a toy that shoots out a harmless ball of air up to 20 feet away. My plan was to ruffle his feathers a bit with a small blast of air and startle him to coming down to earth.

Luckily, the Airzooka has a scope on it.

I carefully aimed it at my very expensive rain forest creature and let fly a blast of air.

I missed but managed to hit the ribbon decorating the bottom of the wreath and a cloud of dust wafted through the air. Who knew an Airzooka was an effective dusting tool for hard to reach places?

After a few more attempts and compensations for the inaccurate scope, I had a direct hit! Granted it was only a small puff of air to my little bird friend but it was enough to talk him into fleeing his new lofty home and landing on my head. Minutes later he was safely locked in his cage while I searched my bird books on how to clip wings.

After GooseyGirl and I read up on wing clipping and dried her tears, we locked Apollo in the bathroom and clipped his flight feathers. It worked! Apollo is now grounded which is safer for all involved.

Things had just settled down in the house when Shawn came back in with BirdMan and RocketMan from the fishing pond. I lost it.

"Where have you been? Why didn't you come back when RocketMan told you the bird was loose?", I screeched.

Dumbfounded, Shawn replied, "RocketMan came to the pond but he picked up his pole and started fishing. Did you say Apollo got loose?"

I turned to RocketMan. "Didn't you tell Daddy to come home and get the ladder because Apollo was loose in the house?"

"Um.... well, um...., I told him but I don't think he heard me", RocketMan replied.

"Why don't you think he heard you?", I asked.

"Um... well, um..., I don't think he heard me because I was far away from him", RocketMan said.

(Note to self: Must work on communication skills with RocketMan.)

Bird is now safe and sound. He slept soundly the night after his first mission but seems no worse for wear.