Popeye and scaling fences.

My boss's bird, Popeye escaped yesterday afternoon from his cage in front of our sister shop OKASIE. As soon as I heard the news, I rushed in the direction passers-by saw him flying and as Popeye is quite a vocal bird, I was able to follow his voice (screeches) to the Anglican church's (enclosed) garden.
I talked to him, I whistled Jan Pierewiet - the one song he knows the first line of (on one note may I add), I tutted, I pleaded, I shouted, I coaxed, but the bird just sat high in the monkey puzzle tree tutting, whistling and talking back.

At around 17h00 I called in the reinforcements - a friend and a regular at our shop, Salomè, works at the Vetshop down the alley and has a connection with Popeye. I hoped that if he saw her, he'd come flying down.

But to no avail, Popeye just whistled, tutted and talked cockatoo while we performed to the gathering crowd in an attempt to get him down from the tree. We finally scaled the garden's fence hoping that if we could get closer, we might look him in the eye and get him to come flying to us or something. Later (as the sun set) Popeye flew to another tree, gave one last screech and went quiet while Salomè and I whistled, shouted and coaxed. I think he put his head under his wing and slept.... We got a torch from a waitress at another restaurant nearby (although a man brought us the torch, we knew it was a woman's - it had a red button that turned the torch into a shock stick if you pressed it) - Holding the flashlight by the very end, terrified of the red button, we scanned the trees for an ever silent Popeye .... with aching necks we gave up at around 19h30.

This morning as I got to work it was still dark. I opened the shop, did the morning duties etc. By around 07h15 I opened the back door and stepping out, I heard Popeye screeching. I rushed to the church's garden hoping that a night out alone in the cold might have taught him his lesson - ha-ha-ha how wrong I was. As I stood doing the same routine as last night (scaling the fence again, whistling, talking, tutting, coaxing...), Salomè showed up and she joined me (I left her a couple of minutes later to go to the shop and get us some coffee and an apple for Popeye), later another customer from the shop showed up to give us moral support, my boss's father showed up hoping to help, the church's gardener showed up, the gent who gave us the flashlight also pitched, and yet again Popeye had his captive audience or is it his own personal entertainment troupe? We whistled, talked, tutted, I threw some apple at him but my aim is not too good so Popeye just watched apple chunks flying by; passers-by gave advice, we hoisted a ladder up the tree with his cage at the top end - which promptly fell down spraying water and bird seeds over us all and finally Popeye stretched his wings and flew ..... away!
Later in the morning, we spotted him in a tree next to the post office and the same scene repeated itself except this time we tried to spray him with water from a borrowed hosepipe - which just caused Popeye to climb higher in to that tree, and fly away - again...

Well the day passed with Salomè and I working and going for Popeye walks every now and again - but no luck, the bird finally disappeared and we can't find him again. We left his cage in the church's garden hoping that he might see his home and hop in.

I'm going to miss Popeye's screeches and whistling floating through Victoria Eatery's windows everyday. I do hope he is happy flying around the greater Hermanus and that he learns about being a non-captive little bird fast, so he can stay safe from cat claws and owl, falcon or eagle beaks. Bon Voyage Popeye!