Greys on a walkabout
ONE sunny May morning, Wal, my late husband, asked: “What is Perdy doing in the garden?” Our five-year-old lesser sulphur-crested was sitting calmly on a rose bush. “Bring her in!” I hissed. She flew to his shoulder and he brought her indoors.
In those days, our four pet birds (two cockatoos and two African greys) slept after a day in the aviary in a conservatory fitted up as a birdroom. Two mesh doors closed it off from the garden. One mesh door was open. It must have been open all night. Artha and Casper, the two greys, were missing. Thirty minutes’ examination of house and garden yielded no birds.
At 8.30am one of the wardens from a nursing home in the
