Parakeet on the loose
Banner Daily Update posted Sat. July 21
By Kaimi Rose Lum
Banner Staff
PROVINCETOWN — A bird answering the description of Provincetown resident Naomi Kabokow’s lost pet parakeet “Tookie” was discovered this past week in the company of a wild chickadee on Center Street. A rescue attempt is currently underway.
Vacationers Peter Ballentyne and Dan McGrath knew something out of the ordinary was going on when they first spotted the bright blue and yellow bird on the rooftop of their condo at the corner of Center and Bradford Streets last Saturday. Amateur birdwatchers from Troy, N.Y., they quickly ascertained it was a parrot and kept track of its movements over the next few days. The bird spent a lot of time dabbling in the rain gutter, winging in and out of a large maple tree nearby, and socializing, they told the Banner.
“He’s got a little friend that’s another, different kind of bird, a chickadee,” said McGrath.
On Friday, word got around to the two men that the bird might be the escaped pet of Kabokow, who just that morning happened to take out an advertisement in this local newspaper seeking help in her search for “Tookie.” Ballentyne and McGrath phoned Kabokow, who promptly rushed over to their Center Street address to see if she could recapture her parakeet.
“That’s his first taste of freedom, and he likes it,” she said in a phone interview after returning home, still without him, later on Friday. She said Tookie escaped almost exactly a month ago, on Saturday, June 23, from his cage at her condo in the East End. She had brought the cage out on the deck, she explained, and forgotten to lock the cage door.
Tookie has been sighted elsewhere in Provincetown. Until McGrath and Ballentyne called, Kabokow had been staking out a lawn up the hill from Conwell Lumber, where her bird was making regular appearances at the home of Pauline and James Richmond, who have birdfeeders.
“I’ve been sitting under a peach tree with my butterfly net,” Kabokow said. She almost caught Tookie in the net on Wednesday when he landed on the feeder, but he got away. Since then, sightings have been few and far between, although “Pauline said she might have seen him do a fly-by,” she said.
Kabokow has put in a call to Provincetown resident Celine Gandolfo, who has experience with parrots, to see if she can help. Gandolfo was unable to be reached Friday as she was taking the parrot that lives at Shop Therapy up to Brewster to get its nails trimmed.
“Part of me is saying to let him go, but then I’m thinking, Wow, in two months, the cold comes in, he’s dead,” Kabokow said, adding, “He’s a baby. He’s only six months old.”
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Jul 19th, 2007