When I started keeping birds about seven years ago. I purchased a couple of Senegal parakeets in a job lot. I think that they were both males. I had them for five years until one of them died so I put the survivor in with a pair of Lorikeets to keep him company. He chatted to one of them incessantly and totally ignored the other.
 | | The Brae. Cost £25,000 to build in 1924 |
Well he got fed up with their company and unknown to me, he eat his way out of the flight and got in to the flight with a couple of male Alexandrine parakeets, four times his size. After six months with his new friends, he decided to move again, this time into the garden. I just could not believe it; early one morning I was walking around the garden, when I caught sight of my Senegal, he was happily flying around the garden. Fly Free Although he would normally ignored me when I approached his flight, this time he was showing me what he could do now he was released. He flew over my head several times as if to tell me that he was free. He made chatting sounds as he circled the garden and after about five minutes he flew away. I could not believe it, it was the first time that I had lost a bird. I was so upset that it was several days before I told friends that I had lost one of my family. I searched around for him without any luck; I hated myself for not giving his flight more attention. Stormy Weather We had a lot of storms just after he left and I was getting resigned to not ever seeing him again. I spend many hours a day in my aviary and birdhouse watching and talking to the three hundred or so birds in my care. I started keeping birds as a hobby in my retirement, but after six months or so I was asked if I could take one or two from our local animal shelter as I had loads of room for them. After three weeks, I had given up all hope of ever seeing my Senegal, well, that was until early one morning when I went into the garden and I was walking around in the aviary when I could hear the sound of a Senegal.
 | | First Car |
I went out of the aviary and looked around the garden, calling out to the bird in desperation. I am hard of hearing and I cannot tell what direction the sounds come from, I just knew that my bird was somewhere near. I searched everywhere, the sound was very near, when I approached the flights attached to the birdhouse I could still hear the bird as I was standing with my back to the flights, and with my poor hearing I thought that he was across the far side of the pond. Teaser Bird I though that he was just teasing me by visiting and this time when he went away I would never see him again. He was a lovely little fellow. The chatting stopped, I thought that he had left, I knew that I had seen the last of him....I am a big fellow and, OK I did shed a tear that morning, but not as many as I did when I turned around to be comforted by the Alexandrine parakeets in the flight behind me, when to my amazement none other than that lovely little cheeky Senegal was sitting on the perch with them. He had squeezed back through the same tiny hole that he had made to get out. ….He was home. | 
