Remy back to his old self after flying away for three days

A pet Indian Ringneck that went missing for three days in summer before turning up in a Kensington backyard has been loving his time being back home.

Remy’s owner Bec Leader said she had been training him to stay on her shoulder as she stood on the balcony of her home in Maribyrnong.

Everything was going well with Bec rewarding Remy with treats until he was suddenly spooked by a gust of wind.

“He tried to land at a nearby tree and birds were on him at that point, so he kept going,” Bec said.

Bec panicked for the next three days as she walked around hours each day calling out to him – including making bird sounds – but to no avail.

She also posted to multiple community Facebook pages appealing for the public’s help in a desperate bid to find him.

To make matters worse, Remy had gone missing during a heat wave with Bec “praying that he was healthy”.

But to her astonishment, Bec received a call from a stranger in Kensington saying they believed they had found her cheeky parrot after seeing the Facebook posts.

“I was over there with his travel cage within half an hour. He was on her clothesline,” Bec said, which was more than two kilometres from her home.

“I was in tears when I found him.”

Apart from Remy experiencing nine grams of muscle wastage, he was given the all-clear from a vet on the day he was found in late February.

Bec said she was “extremely relieved” and while the finder insisted on not being rewarded, Bec decided to give her $50 and a bunch of flowers.

Remy has since fully recovered and was back to his old self at home, with Bec also looking at getting him a parrot friend.

She explained the training exercise – a method called recall that teaches a parrot to fly into their owners’ hands – was something she had done before with Remy (who can also talk) but “there’s no way in hell I’m letting that stuff happen again”.

“I think the first thing he said to me when I picked him up from the clothesline was ‘what ya been doing?’,” to which Bec replied to the finder, “the audacity of this guy to say ‘what ya been doing?’ when I should be asking what he’s been doing all this time.”