As many of you will know, we have a Parrot that has owned us for over 19  years. She is a Blue Crowned Conure Teenager, called Connie. On Thursday evening 8th of April 99  I had to go to Ashburton Town hall to take photographs of the Carnival Queen Choosing, leaving the Wife Kay and Connie in the office. Kay also then left Connie and went into the house for a while, then came out to the office again. By now Connie was quite miffed that she had been left alone and when Kay opened the door, flew straight past her to come looking for me, unfortunately it was already past 8 o'clock and getting dark, I returned some ten minutes later, but she had gone. We spent the next three hours looking for her without success.

The following morning we were out at 5 a.m. to see if we could see or hear her, we then returned home. At about 7 a.m. our neighbour came running up the path saying she had just heard our parrot on the other side of the Rangers football field!  some 500 metres away - I ran up the lane and to my horror she was flying with the crows towards the football club calling me at the same time.

The weather on the Friday was wonderful and probably the best day we had seen for many months, wall to wall sunshine and very warm, for this reason there was a certain reluctance for Connie to come down out of the trees, also every time she called me, the crows would fly down and mob her.

For the next thirteen hours Connie was flying around Buckfastleigh, from the town to the fire station, backwards and forwards from the large trees near the football club. She was seen by many people at Fullaford, Barn Park and Bossell Road all day.

Then at about 8.00 pm as the sun was going down, she worked her way back to a large tree by the children's play park at Duckspond and we thought she was coming home as she was within 200 metres of the house. She sat in the tree for a while shouting at us, then suddenly took off and flying straight across the A38 to the top of the quarry.

We could see hawks and crows flying over the quarry, to them, she would just be a very colourful meal, also at this time of the year they are feeding their young. We stood in the lane until about 9.00 pm in the hope that she would still return to us when it became quite dark.

Saturday morning, we were out again at 5.00 am and then every 10 to 15 minutes throughout the day, we realised that she had gone, probably a meal for one of the hawks or crows or even the owls that live in the quarry since it is now closed.

By about 3.00 pm, we were convinced that was the end of her. She was a member of our family for fifteen years and we had spent more time in her company than all the time spent with our kids put together, because she was always here and not at school or out playing, for that reason we were very attached to her.

We had two cages, one was a very large one and the other was the one we called her travelling cage, as we usually to take her with us on holidays to France, Spain, Germany, Scotland, Wales and many long weekend in Cornwall.

It was so quiet without her, I said to Kay lets go down to the "Sign of The Owl" a shop full of all sorts of  Birds" and get another bird as it was very hard to sit and look at an empty cage.

We arrived to be greeted by a very large Yellow Headed Amazon parrot hanging upside down saying "Hello, Hello" and it looked very friendly, we also looked at other birds but kept being drawn back to the Amazon called Charlie, so we took him home, settled him in to the large cage, when the phone rang, it was Tracey from the Medical Centre, saying "I have just seen your parrot in a tree, telling me exactly where in Plymouth Road". I ran out to the car and drove straight up to the location, but there was not a sign of her. I drove all around the top end of Buckfastleigh, then returned home and suggested that Kay went out and walked around, just in case someone else rang.

Ten minutes later Mrs Bailey from Tweenaways phoned, saying "your parrot is in a tree opposite my house", I shot up there with an apple in my hand. Sure enough their she was and only about 15 to 20 feet up a tree, making a lot of noise. I stood in the garden eating the apple, her favourite snack, as she worked her way down the tree until she was about ten feet above me, when one of the residents offered me a step ladders, passed them over the fence, and two minutes later she was on my arm licking what was left of the apple.

I took her home and met Kay on the way, put her in the other cage and gave her some food and drink. Considering how long she had been out, she was in perfect condition, and to her it was as though she had never been away, making the usual demands. All she wanted was her usual tea, which that evening was steak and chips and a choc-ice and washed down with a drop of Scotch.

Meanwhile, Charlie had fallen seriously in love with Connie, and over the next three days got worse, then he flew across to my knee, missed and landed on the floor, Connie also went down on the floor to investigate, by now Charlie is glazes eyed, feet turned out with his tail feathers all out in full display, running around trying to convince Connie just how beautiful he is, he was the perfect gentleman. Connie wasn't having any of this, shot across the floor and bit him on the head, the look of surprise as he backed away, come to think about this, probably on our faces as well as he was four times her size, then with his head down running around in a full display, he was saying to her "Hello, hello, hello". We didn't know whether to laugh or cry. Connie then flew on my shoulder and Charlie followed landing on my arm, where he turned into a 15 inch high Rottweiler, taking sizeable chunks out of my arm, because I was now his competition. It was very sad, and decided we had to take him back, he is only a year old and we felt that it would be unfair to keep him locked up in the cage, but we are getting another parrot, an African Grey in a couple of weeks, where this problem is less likely to happen, at the present time the African Grey still lacks a feather or two as it is very young and is being hand reared by Mr Wakeham at the "Sign of the Owl Birds" near Ugborough.

We have now curtailed her flying practices for a month or two and had her wings clipped, which is a bit like having a haircut. Connie can only fly about four feet now, and gets very cross about this, spending about an hour going through each feather to find out which one is causing the problem.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank every one in Buckfastleigh for their help in trying to get Connie back, in particular to Mrs Bailey and her neighbours for their help and assistance. We are now a family again.

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