Escaped budgie from Sway turns up 85 miles away

A RARE budgie given up for dead after escaping from a home in Sway has been recovered 85 miles away having survived for five months in the wild.

Budgie breeder Alison Thompson was left heartbroken after the blue-and-white crested Hagoromo Japanese helicopter bird disappeared in May.

She said: “I was hand-feeding my birds in the aviary in the garden, like I always do.

"This one was only a few months old, and tiny. She was so light that I hadn’t realised that she had perched on my shoulder.

"As I left the aviary, she flew over to a fence with a trellis on top.

“I got a net and managed to trap her but she flew off through the trellis.”

A desperate Alison posted on social media and budgie breeder Facebook pages in the hope someone would find him.

But when the bird was still missing months later she feared he had fallen a victim to a bird of prey.

Alison said: “Her bright colours would make her a target. I also felt she would not be able to care for herself for that long out in the wild. I really felt she must be dead.”

So she was amazed to be contacted last week by the breeder from whom she bought the budgie, saying she believed the bird had been found.

Alison said: “She told me a man in Taunton had posted a photo of a budgie asking if anyone had lost one.

“She had recognised it as mine from its distinctive markings. Hagoromos have feathers on their back that look like flowers.”

The person who posted the message was Craig Manning whose friend had found it in her garden and given it to him, as he also keeps budgies.

Alison raced up to Taunton, in Somerset, get it back on Monday.

She said: “When I got there Craig said, 'I knew she must be yours because she started chirping madly as soon as she saw you'."

Alison said: “I was so excited to see her – were both so amazed that she had managed to fly 85 miles!”

The budgie is now in her own cage which is set beside the aviary.

Alison said: “She had parasites which showed she’d been fending for herself in the wild. I have to keep her in quarantine for about four weeks before she can rejoin the flock.

“But she hasn’t stopped chirping to them since she’s been back.”