Escaped Paraguayan parrot ‘Chris’ found by local after luring him out of his treetop hiding spot with an apple, but the rescuer finds the reunion bittersweet as he sees the ‘EXTREMELY small cage’ he was living in

Author image for Laurent Shinar
Laurent Shinar • Writer and Editor
Jan 5, 2026 5:00 PM EST

Now while most of our lost animal stories here tend to consist of dogs and cats going missing today we have quite the departure from those stories. For today we have a the tale of Chris the blue-fronted Amazon parrot. A feathery friend who managed to outwitt his pawrents and break free from his cage. And after going on what must have been one of the more joyous and free flights of his life, landing in a treetop to serenade and perform for the public passing underneath. But it was exactly said performance that drew the attention of our story's narrator, an avid bird lover who quickly figured out that the strange call he was hearing was no ordinary bird call, but a bird call from a parrot who had learned to say hello in Spanish! A truly impressive feat if you ask us, but ultimately it was one which brought the bird one step closer to returning home.

For as it turned out his home was not something that he was too excited to return to. Upon bringing the bird into his home the narrator managed to make contact with the parrot's pawrents and when they met up, he found out why this parrot was so reluctant to go home. For this poor parrot had been kept in a tiny cage, far too small for a bird his size and was obviously feeling cramped and uncared for. Serving as a strong reminder that not all homes are happy ones, but sometimes there is little we can do to change that for animals that are not under our care. But at least Chris is safe.

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    "Chris was super gentle, I could tell he was young, because he was making baby noises"
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    We woke up Thursday the 14th to a weird sound coming from outside, my dad thought it was a kid shouting but I was convinced it was a bird of some sort. I really enjoy birdwatching and I can manage to
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    identify various bird calls in the neighborhood, but for the life of me I couldn't pinpoint exactly what type of bird was making this one noise. So I told my dad that it was probably a parrot imitating some human sound. An
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    hour passed, but the screeches wouldn't go away, so I decided to go outside and I immediately saw him: a blue-fronted Amazon replicating the spanish greeting of "Hola!" (we're in Paraguay). I thought
    via Hotel777
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    it was pretty nice, I love parrots, they're my favorite animals, so I brought a chair, sat outside on my porch and started watching him. The little fella was shouting "HOLA!" to every passerby and he was doing tricks!
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  • Wow, this is one heck of a sharp bird watcher/lover and an even more so talented bird. You have to wonder what kind of skill and intuition it takes to listen to a bird sound, know that it is not a typical bird sound and then somehow realize that it is not even strictly a bird sound, but a house trained parrot trying to say a hooman word he has been taught. Incredible. And then you add to that, that this escaped parrot had essentially parked itself up on a tree to perform for all those who pass by. What a wacky scenario.

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    Like opening his wings, flipping through the branches... But then it hit me, this parrot must be an escapee. The fact that he was alone and not in a flock, doing tricks and shouting the most generic word people teach
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    parrots, made me think that he escaped from his cage or whatever. Sure enough, after some time, some people (who I assumed were his owners) gathered at the base of the tree and tried to convince him to come down. I later
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    learned the parrot's name was Chris. The owners must have been some neighbors because they brought chairs and sat on the sidewalks hoping for the fella to come down. FYI the tree is really big, that little fella was having the
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    time of his life, he wasn't coming down. The sun was starting to set, the owners gave up and left the bird there. I also decided to leave and didn't think much about it.
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    The next day however, Friday the 15th, I went out to see if the bird is still there but didn't see him nor hear him. I brought my chair, sat on my porch to chill a bit, and not 5 minutes passed and I heard this soft "Hola" coming from my left. At my left
    via Hotel777
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    (directly overlooking my porch) is another tree, and there he was, between the branches, the parrot Chris was looking straight at me. Now I used to own budgies, and this guy was acting literally the same way my budgies
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  • Well isn’t this one smart parrot. He might not have wanted to go back to his owners, but he seemingly somehow recognized that our story’s protagonist was a hooman who could be trusted. A hooman who perhaps understood the parrot better than most other hoomans. It is truly wild to see an animal use their intuition and intelligence to navigate complex situations with the hooman world. They are so much smarter than we ever give them credit for.  

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    would act, so I knew by his body language that the little fella was pretty hungry. I hurried to the kitchen, sliced an apple and came back to him. I couldn't reach the tree branches per se, so I just extended both of my arms,
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    one with the apple to lure him, and one so that he could jump and perch on it. This parrot however, wasn't keen on flying (again, I could tell by the body language), so I brought a broom, removed the swipy head, called my mom so she
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    could record, and as you can see in the video, he hurried to the apple. We took him to the elevator down to the ground floor, where the building security guard was waiting with the parrot's cage that the owner's had left him the day before (in
    via Hotel777
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    case he decided to come down). And this is where my heart broke... As you can imagine, EXTREMELY small cage for an Amazon of his size, heck, my 3 budgies shared a bigger cage. The cage was dirty, with rotten apples and guava on its floor
    via Hotel777
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    and there literally wasn't even a newspaper to like cover the cage's bottom. The parrot hurried to his cage, we thanked the guard, he thanked us, and we went to our appartment. The security guard had called the owners and I assume they came back for Chris.
    via Hotel777
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    During that brief time where I held him and fed him, Chris was super gentle, I could tell he was young, because he was making baby noises as I fed him (which btw are super cute).
    via Hotel777

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Tags

found escape reunion reddit story local cage extreme small tree apple bittersweet hiding parrot spot rescue
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