The power of social media was on full display in recent weeks after a pet parakeet flew the coop in suburban Naperville, and thanks to an eagle-eyed resident near Decatur, this story has a happy ending.
The parakeet, named “Blue,” escaped a Naperville home in early August after getting a bath, leaving his owner devastated.
“Within a second,” Sathya Essaki said of the amount of time it took Blue to fly away. “I was not able to predict that he was already flying. He’s a good flyer out of all my birds.”
Essaki said that she looked everywhere for the bird.
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“We couldn’t find him. We went to the drainage ditch and everything. Unfortunately, he wasn’t coming back,” she said.
Finally, she turned to social media, pleading for help in finding her beloved pet.
Approximately 150 miles away in a community called Cerro Gordo, located near Decatur, Brandon Walker was minding his own business when he saw an unusual sight: a beautiful blue parakeet.
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Knowing that parakeets aren’t exactly native to Illinois, Walker assumed that the bird belonged to someone, and he posted Blue’s photo on social media.
“Investigative stuff is fun to me,” he said.
Both posts bounced around the internet, and eventually David Stukins saw Walker’s post. After searching around online, he also found Essaki’s post, and he thought that the parakeet looked a lot like Blue.
“I took a screenshot and put it in the comment section said ‘hey, this might be a long shot,’” he recalled.
As it turns out, Stukins was exactly right, and soon Walker got in touch with Essaki to celebrate the good news.
“He saved my Blue’s life. He was like a godmother to my Blue,” she said.
Essaki and her husband immediately jumped in the car and made the three-hour journey to be reunited with their beloved pet, providing a happy ending to a long and eventful journey for the bird.
“When I saw Blue I (had) tears coming out,” she said. “My husband said ‘are you happy now? Are you okay? You got your Blue back. You got your baby back.’”
