Not kidding: Beaufort fire dept. rescued parrot stuck on roof saying ‘crackers’ Friday
Engine company four of the City of Beaufort/Town of Port Royal Fire Department was called to help rescue an animal stuck on the roof of the Parc at Broad River apartments Friday around 7:45 p.m.
The animal?
A 19-year-old parrot named Sammi.
According to a Facebook post by the department, Sammi “escaped her cage and flew to the roof of an adjacent building” Friday evening before getting stuck there.
When firefighters located her on the roof, they began to “coax” her down from the roof, according to the post.
Asked what kind of “coaxing” was necessary to bring the bird down, Lt. Peter Dontje of the fire department said firefighters used a long pole to guide Sammi toward the edge of the building and recruited her owner to call her from the ground.
“She was singing and talking the whole time,” Dontje said of Sammi. “I couldn’t make it out but her owner said she was singing ‘happy birthday’ and saying ‘crackers.’ Those are some of her key phrases.”
Sammi was “able to fly to the ground under her own power, visiting several trees on her trip down,” the post said.
Once she came down, she was “quickly reunited” with her owner, Dontje said.
Sammi’s adventure isn’t unique, according to Barbara Heidenreich, a bird specialist who writes for Good Bird Inc and says fly-offs are a “normal” part of training birds.
“The good news is that parrots are often very easily recovered. In all my years of doing bird shows, parrots were the easiest ones to get back,” Heidenreich writes in a column titled “Strategies to Utilize when a Flighted Parrot Escapes.” “This is primarily due to the fact that most pet parrots tend to seek human companionship.”
This story was originally published May 11, 2019 at 11:00 AM.
