A rescue quaker parrot that was about to be rehomed at the Parrot Sanctuary in East End escaped from his aviary in George Town this weekend. Dr. Ginny Hobday, who has been looking after him for the past decade, is appealing to the public to help find him.
The last sighting of Nonny the parrot was at Tropical Gardens on Crewe Road on Sunday.
Hobday said Nonny escaped through a hole where the mesh had rusted on the roof of her aviary.
“He is friendly and talkative but not keen on being handled. Please keep a look out for him. We are very worried about him,” she said in a Facebook post this weekend
Hobday, who is the medical director of Jasmine hospice, gave a home to Nonny about 10 years ago, after the family of a hospice patient she would visit asked her to take him.
They had found the bird when he landed on the shoulder of a person in the household one day while on a beach in Bodden Town, she told the Cayman Compass Tuesday.
“They searched for an owner, with no luck,” she said.
The family already had a parrot of their own, but that bird did not get on with Nonny. “I visited the home regularly because we had a hospice patient there. They wanted me to take it as they knew I had an aviary – for budgies my sons got given,” she said.
She added that at the time she was told by Department of Environment not to release him as quaker parrots are not indigenous to Cayman and there are concerns that these birds may displace local parrots.
After keeping him at her own aviary for years, she had decided recently to take him to the Parrot Sanctuary to join another quaker parrot.
“We had been waiting for [the Parrot Sanctuary] to have a bigger area – which they now do – as he is used to flying in an aviary,” she told the Compass. “They have a single quaker parrot, so it would have been good if they got on.”
She said she was worried that Nonny may not know how to forage or feed himself as she doesn’t know how long he had been in the wild before he came to her.
“Please look out,” Hobday said in her Facebook post. “He loves bread bits. He will fly down and land on your head or shoulder to be fed!”
Known for their ability to mimic human speech, quaker parrots, which are also called as monk parakeets, originate from South America and are believed to have been brought to Cayman as pets. Since some escaped or were released over the years, they have formed breeding colonies around Grand Cayman.
Anyone who spots Nonny can call Dr. Ginny Hobday on 525-3689 or contact her via her Facebook page.
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