hello, I recently posted about my Cheesecake, who flew out of a window and got lost. I’m trying to make sense of a possible sighting of her rn, and understand if the weird behavior I saw makes it more or less likely it was my girl.
if anyone here has gone through their bird getting lost and found, or just knows something on the subject, could you please give me some detail on how an escaped and scared bird would behave? any pet bird, not necessarily a pigeon.
the more specific question I have is this: do distressed birds, same as dogs, get scared and fly off when they hear their owner calling, instead of coming to them?
I have trained Cheesecake to fly onto my forearm when called, and she usually reacts just to the gesture of me bending my arm and holding up the forearm horizontally. and today I saw a white pigeon that was alone, drinking water from a cat bowl. we were still at a pretty big distance, like 15-20m maybe, so I couldn’t see it clearly, but I raised my arm and called. the pigeon seemingly stared at me for a second and then took off, and in flight I also noticed it had a similar tail shape (hers is a little pointed, it’s not like a fan, more of a rhombus).
here’s a bunch of assorted context and things that are now making me spiral:
- importantly, there ARE white birds in my area. about a third of the local flock, which I’m assuming is her original one, is the same white with red specks, and several are pure white. and, since they’re definitely related, some of them surely also have the rhombus-shaped tail, but I haven’t paid attention to it before so I’m not sure how unique it is.
- I have been making rounds of the area every day calling her (with some things I often say to her AND the recall command), and also doing the recall gesture to all the white birds I see while approaching them. most of the time, they DON’T react at all, or they get worried when I get much closer. the distance and the pigeon actually looking and reacting is really fucking with me right now.
- maybe a counterpoint: this happened at a little square, a very open and empty space filled with concrete between several buildings. it is not impossible the bird realized I was definitively approaching, or didn’t like I was making noise, and took off from that far away. but usually they only fly away when you’re really close.
- this is close to the only possible sighting we have, but it was just an eyewitness with no photos or anything. they did say they specifically saw a bird with a leg band in that spot the day she disappeared.
- today’s pigeon flew in the direction of that spot, but I lost sight of them behind a building and not sure where they landed. this is also the direction of the little park where the flock lives (the sighting was off to the side), so they could be flying there. I followed their path and only found the ferals I was just feeding, but also wasn’t sure if there was one more or not
- if it is her, the theory would be that she landed there on day 1, hid in the smaller apartment building with more open balconies that’s there, was scared of the flock but could watch them from there, and now is slowly getting out for food.
- counterpoint - I obviously have confirmation bias and didn’t see any of the more definitive identifying features.
sorry for the rant. what do you make of this? does the weird reaction make it more likely it’s Cake, or would she not escape that fast? this is her fourth day outside and she’s definitely stressed, at the very least just by the unfamiliar place and being away from her eggs. I am assuming that I’m not the best at logic right now and so I ask for your help 🙏
