A couple was out for a walk on beautiful fall day in Mesa, AZ, and were startled when a lovely bright orange and green bird landed on the woman’s shoe.  The couple was uncertain as to what to do with this bird and didn’t know how to extract it from their shoe so they continued walking approximately the 1 mile to our hospital. Upon arrival one of our nurses was dispatched to the lobby to assess our new “patient.”  He promptly went to the lobby and gently removed the bird from the shoe. The couple thanked him and started to leave the building.  Our nurse asked if there was a problem with the bird and they said no they just wanted to get the bird off the shoe.  We examined the bird and identified it as a Jenday Conure that was very tame and apparently hand-fed.  The bird was very thin and when placed in an incubator with food and water it ate with great vigor.  Unfortunately, even though we have examined the newspapers daily we did not find any ads for an owner missing a bird.

Take away message:   Birds Like Shoes No:

• If you own a pet bird there are many things you need to do in order to ensure its safety.
• All birds should have their wings clipped if given any potential access to the outdoors.
• In addition if you take your bird outside with you for a walk or to visit others, you should invest in an avian flight harness to keep your pet with you and not up in the trees.  Remember even a bird with trimmed wings can get uplift on a breezy day and may get far enough away from you to get lost or enter  a dangerous situation.  If you invest in a flight harness you will need to very slowly train your bird to allow you to place the harness on your pet – go slow!
• Lastly, all bird owners should have current photos of their pets and also have their pets chipped.  A microchip is a very small chip implanted into the muscle by a needle injection and provides a permanent number through a national registry allowing anyone that finds the bird to access your information and return your lost pet to you.