Exotic bird returned safely to Sydney owner four days after its disappearance

An exotic bird’s owner managed to get her missing bird back after four days of worry – but had to be elevated four storeys high to collect him. Skittles, a two-year-old turquoise-fronted Amazon, disappeared from a West Sydney home on Friday. The bird flew away from the house in Auburn after getting a fright, and was reported missing to NSW Police by its owner. A detective at Auburn Police Station found Skittles sitting by a nearby window on Tuesday at about 3pm, alerting the owner and Fire and Rescue NSW. Firefighters helped the woman retrieve her pet by placing her in a harness and helmet, then using a ladder platform on their truck to elevating her four storeys up. She was able to get Skittles to walk onto her arm and back into a cage, before they were safely brought back down to the ground. FRNSW Lidcombe station officer Darryn Moalem said that birds were often “notoriously difficult to rescue – they’ll generally fly away as soon as anyone gets close to them and you’ll never see them again”. “The careful efforts of firefighters, police officers and the owner have paid off in this instance, and it’s great we’ve been able to bring about this reunion,” he added. Skittles’ species of bird is also known as the blue-fronted Amazon or the turquoise-fronted parrot, and is a common exotic pet originating from South Africa. Though plentiful in the wild, a declining population has caused the International Union for Conservation of Nature to mark the species as near threatened. Exotic birds are allowed to be owned in Australia, provided their owner can prove they have been legally obtained.