I have an eight year old parakeet named Mango; now although that doesn’t seem to be too impressive, what is impressive is that six years ago, he returned to my family three days after flying away one bitterly cold October day.

 It all started one Sunday, me and my brothers were coming home from a road trip with my aunt and uncle. We pulled up to the house with sleep still in our eyes and looked out the window to see that we were home. Instantly we were confused. Our beloved bird’s cage was out on our walkway, empty, with the doors open. We ran out of the car to our parents to investigate the situation. When we got to them they explained that while they were cleaning his cage earlier in the day, the door was open just a hair and he flew out before they could close it. Instant waterworks. 

We tried everything we could to bring Mango back home. We walked the streets in our neighborhood calling his name and whistling to him, left his cage outside in hopes of him recognizing it and coming back to us, we even left bird food outside, anything that could possibly bring him back to us. 

After a day or two we felt hopeless. It had started to get so cold and windy throughout the past few days and it even rained one night. We were so sure that our baby bird was gone for good, so we began to move on with our lives. 

A few days later I was at the after care program at Whittier school. It was so chilly outside that my friend and I decided to stay inside rather than go out. The evening was slow until we heard a commotion outside, yelling and screaming and crowding around. We ran outside eager to see what was going on, when somebody shouted out, “It’s a bird!”

And a bird it was, on top of one of the teachers head was our bright yellow bird Mango. The teacher did her best to take him off of her head  and perch him onto a railing. I was ecstatic seeing him and immediately told everyone that he was mine. I put my hand out to him and he hopped onto my finger. I could feel how cold he was and immediately brought him inside of the school. 

After a phone call to my mom we were finally able to take him back home; We were reunited at last, and we were all SOOO relieved to see that he was safe. Mango is still alive and well with us, and has never even thought to fly out of the house again.