Luke - a Noisy Parrot visitor
A PARROT CALLED LUKE
Lots of people have asked me to write something about the yellow-fronted Amazon parrot that visited early November 05 – early May 06.
In early November 2005 Terry Farler from next door rang and said ‘You’ve got a green parrot in your crab-apple tree’. I thought he was joking of course, because Terry’s a bit of a tease! But yes, we did have a green parrot eating our crab apples. He was at first a quiet parrot and didn’t squawk at all and was very shy. I told the vet and the pet shop, rang the RSPCA and left messages on internet sites. Neighbour Carolyn Farler left a message at the pub and Annie Pritchard said she would keep an eye out for him.
Then, by chance Carolyn Farler saw a note in ‘The Web’ - a local village’s newsletter – saying someone in Barrington had also had a green parrot in their garden for several weeks. Did anyone know to whom it belonged? Luckily there was a phone number, so I rang. After the parrot had disappeared from their garden, they had found out who the parrot belonged to – Dave Madge from Shepton Beachamp. I rang Dave and he was thrilled – the parrot had been missing for over a year! Dave came round next morning at 8.00am armed with grapes, his favourite food, as the parrot usually came down to start eating crab apples about that time. Dave said his parrot’s name was ‘Luke’ and that he had been living wild for over a year after escaping from his aviary with his female mate. Dave walked up the garden calling to Luke, and the result was amazing – Luke roared and screeched overhead, he definitely recognised Dave! He gave us a cage and asked us to try and tempt Luke to come down and feed in the cage. We did our best but Luke wasn’t interested in the cage; he was actually very shy and only stayed at the top of the trees.
He began to come regularly and stay about 20 minutes eating as many crab apples as he could. Now when he arrived he began to get steadily noisier – and soon we could tell when he was on his way because we could hear him coming across the village, shrieking in his very loud parroty way when he wanted to be fed! He arrived regularly at 8.00-ish and at 5.30pm – possibly he was there at other times but we were out at work. By the end of November the crab apples were beginning to run out and anyway other birds were eating them too and the weather was getting colder.
He is a yellow fronted Amazon parrot – 7 years old. I had actually had some hands on experience looking after some blue fronted Amazon parrots for a friend some years earlier so I knew roughly what to feed him on; I laid in a stock of peanuts, seed and grapes (had to be black grapes – he didn’t like green ones!) And so it continued regularly on a daily basis right through the winter; even in freezing winter blowing a gale and snow he would sit in out that crab apple tree coming to join us for a breakfast and supper of grapes and peanuts. Sometimes he was quite chatty – a bit dependent on the weather!
I looked up websites that offered advice and most said that if you have fruit trees, don’t encourage him to stay as wild parrots can be a real pest eating all your fruit before you can get to it. As we have fruit trees it was a bit of a relief that he moved on in early May. His visits became more sporadic - he would just come and talk to us hardly bothering to eat at all - then he was gone. I had the feeling that he travelled some distance to get to our food; he looked very battered in the depths of winter. It is amazing that he managed to survive. I know he fed with some other of our School Lane neighbours too.
Ry Coffman - Seavington St Michael 01460 240004.
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