Isabelle

We have a lot of oak trees in the backyard.  This seems to make a wonderful sanctuary for many types of birds.  Phil has taken an interest in them and has been feeding them.  A lot.  Every time he comes home from Walmart or Home Depot he has another bird feeder or bird food or a new bird feeder holder thingy.  I usually just roll my eyes and give him a hard time about spending so much money on bird accessories.

On Monday morning Phil woke me up and told me to check out the new bird on our backyard feeder.  His bird feeder had attracted a beautiful bright green bird.  Bright green as in -- a parakeet!  We had a chuckle and Phil left for work.  (Phil thought that would be the end of the story.  Ha!)

The poor bird was not very outdoor-savvy.  (For the purpose of this blog, I will refer to the parakeet as a "she".  I'm not a veterinarian am not sure what he/she actually is!)  She was trying to hang with a bunch of sparrows, but she didn't know quite when to fly away and wasn't nearly as skittish as a wild bird should be.  She clearly did not have the skills to live out there.  So I decided to catch her.

I used a butterfly net in my first and second attempts at capturing the bird.  A tiny, plastic butterfly net.  It didn't go so well, but I did manage to get pretty close to the bird both times because she was so tame.  My parents were loading up their van for their trip back to Illinois, but they managed to find time to giggle at my efforts.  Finally Dad suggested I set up a box trap.

Yes, a box propped up with a stick tied to a string, just like Wile E. Coyote uses to try to catch the Road Runner.  I laughed.  And then I set one up.  The problem is, the parakeet didn't come back.

Two blackbirds did manage to catch themselves when I wasn't looking, though!

Then I got the bright idea to play some parakeet songs on the computer to attract the right kind of bird.  Sure enough, when I started playing a little parakeet song (thanks, youtube!), she flew right back into the yard.  Twenty minutes later she wandered into my box trap and I caught her.

Woohoo!  I caught her!  

Ummm.  Now what???

We put an ad on Craigslist's lost and found section so we'll see if anyone responds.  And I've been searching all of the lost and found ads I can find to see if anyone is looking for her.  But in the meantime Claire has named her Isabelle.

She named her.

We may have a pet parakeet.

 Here's Isabelle in her improvised cage - Bailey's kennel!

PS - thanks to Heidi for the plastic bin I used for the box trap.  I promise I'll wash it up before getting it back to you, Heidi!