The blue-yellow macaw that Huub managed to catch on Tuesday evening with the fire brigade in Vlijmen is not his babysitting parrot after all. He let Omroep Brabant know on Wednesday morning. Huub looks after a number of macaws in Haarsteeg for someone who is on vacation. When he received a call on Tuesday evening that a parrot was on the roof of a house on the Zilverkarper in Vlijmen, he thought that perhaps one had escaped.
Could the macaw have escaped when he cleaned the lofts in Haarsteeg, a little further in the afternoon? To Huub’s relief, that turned out not to be the case on Wednesday morning. “I don’t miss a parrot”, he says with relief. But who owns the macaw he caught is now a mystery to him.
Huub immediately called the animal ambulance on Wednesday and hopes that the owner of the blue-yellow bird will report there with the correct papers and ring number. The animal ambulance also immediately made the report nationwide.
The bird is doing well after his adventure. “He is already talking a bit, but I can’t understand him,” says Huub, who temporarily catches the macaw so that the animal can recover. “I’m glad I was able to catch him,” Huub continues. “You don’t know if he would have survived otherwise in the wild. Finding food would have been difficult for him anyway.”
Didn’t want to disturb other macaws
The fact that Huub did not immediately check whether it was one of his babysitting macaws on Tuesday evening has everything to do with the special birds. He didn’t want to disturb the other macaws in the evening. “If someone comes into the aviary in the dark, they are startled,” he explains.
Catching the bird was still a lot of work. Two fire brigade ladders had to be used. With a net ready, Huub then climbed one of the ladders and managed to catch the macaw. This was accompanied by the necessary screeching of the bird. Many local residents came to the rescue.
Huub, at 69 not the youngest after all, was not afraid. “I’ve stood on a ladder more than once in my life,” he says. “But it was a while ago. But luckily I haven’t forgotten it yet.”
Inquiries at the parrot park Zoo Veldhoven learn that the owner of the macaw probably comes from the vicinity of Vlijmen. “A parrot sometimes escapes from us,” says a spokesperson on behalf of the park. “And we always find them nearby. Such a bird first sits with the neighbors and flies a few hundred meters further the next day, but flying five or ten kilometers in one go never actually happens.”
Watch here how Huub managed to catch the macaw: