Oscar with (from left) Mark Hanna, Peter Matthews and Julie Hanna
Oscar the 5-year-old African grey parrot sparked a rescue operation when he was spotted landing on the shoulders of shoppers at Bournemouth’s Castlepoint Shopping Park.
He had escaped from his Ferndown home two days’ earlier and his relieved owners Mark and Julie Hanna were contacted by Castlepoint after their ‘missing parrot’ notice was found on Gumtree.
Now reunited, Peter Matthews, general manager at Castlepoint was invited to meet Oscar at his home where Mark and Julie explained how the beautiful grey bird with bright red tail feathers, flew out of the kitchen door within just seconds of it being opened.
“He has never done that before and we don’t think he will again as he was exhausted after his flight (4.7 miles as the parrot flies) past Bournemouth Airport to Castlepoint,” said Mark. “We hoped when the security team called us that it would be Oscar they had found and he looked very pleased to see us when we opened the box. We cannot thank everyone enough including the public who helped look out for Oscar.”
Peter Matthews said that perhaps Oscar visited Castlepoint because he felt peckish, but they would not be rushing to introduce shopping pollies for avian visitors!
